Skookum Stories 2017

Wow.  We are a few days into "Skookum Stories" -- heritage inquiry for Grade 9 Social Studies students. I have provided a summary of the first nine presentations. These students have been working on these projects off and on since November, and their presentation included story-telling, educating the class about historical events they might not know about, and explanation of the posters, slides, documents, pictures, and artifacts they have brought in to anchor their talk. I especially appreciate how dialed in these students are to what they are talking about, and how they have made connections to history and geography, many of them from the content area of their Social Studies 9 course. See if you can pick that up in these summaries and (in brackets) a reference to the sources they used.

MJ

• Family left Ireland due to potato famine (journals)
• Scottish Immigration to Canada 1906 (ship passenger list)
• WWI vet - Canadian gunner (attestation papers, photo)
• immigration from Utah to Alberta with a family connection to Alexander Galt, a father of Confederation (journals, photo)
• Impact of the death of a family member in Crimean War in the 1850s (journal)

KL

• Great x 5 Grandparents (Scottish) part of the Great Migration to Canada 1820s: ship to Quebec (37 days), steamboat up St. Lawrence, wagon to Upper Canada (interview, journals)
• family migration  to Alberta; worked on CNR, brothers went to WWI (journals, photos, interview)

BB

• Loyalist family, many buried by a New Brunswick church built in 1789 (interview)
• Family contains a WWI vet and many Caribou pioneers, goldminers, and rodeo pros (interviews, photos, 1875 voters’ list)
• New-found connection to Shuswap Aboriginal Nation (interview)

AS

• Ontario Loyalists, later migrated to Prairies (interviews, family documents)
• family departing Saskatchewan for BC upon Tommy Douglas’ election (interview)
• Metis family stories, godfather was Gabriel Dumont, one member became policeman in 1930s but was discharged when a friend used his police vehicle in a bank robbery (interviews)
• Great-grandfather WWII captured at Dieppe raid, survived war but later went missing while goldpanning (interviews)
• Great-grandparents emigrated from Fukushima, Japan to Vancouver, interned in Tashme camp 1941, later left for beet farm in Alberta (map, government identification card issued to Japanese internees, photos, interview)

TE

• Swedish family legacy and immigration in 1870 (family tree)
• descendent of Chief Gw’eh (Kwah) of Ft. St. James, bearer of a pre-contact metal knife (got through trade) and involved in story of early fur-trade, James Douglas, etc. (interview, memorial plaque, photo of knife from museum)
• interwoven stories of multiple Aboriginal relatives from different nations (interviews, family photos)
• father is current hereditary chief of Beaver Clan; ancestors permitted to switch to this clan due to clan imbalance caused by Spanish Flu of 1918 (interviews)
• horrific stories about family members and others Lejac residential school at Fraser Lake, and uncles and aunts taken in “Sixties Scoop” (interviews, photos)

SS

• immigration from India to California in 1908 by steamship (interview)
• Great x2 Grandfather a founding member and of building sponsor of a Sikh temple in California, also made bombs in the 1920s for the Indian Freedom Fighters back in India (interview, photos)

CN

• three different WWII vets in family, involvements with shipbuilding, Battle of the Bulge, and liberation of Italy (photos, interview)
• family member who helped construct beach features at local provincial park (photo, interview)
• great-uncle, a jockey, who rode Secretariat and was later thrown from a horse and paralyzed in 1978 (interview, photo)

EB

• two stories of marriages between German and Dutch family members that were rejected by family in 1800s (journals)
• homesteading activities in the early 1900s, including use of home remedies still in use by family today (interview, direct observation)
• attempts to learn more about push factors for Dutch immigration to Canada met multiple dead ends - story was known but family members didn’t want to talk about it 150 years later (interview)

BG

• Great x2 Grandfather who fought and died at the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel; his will was made 7 days prior, his grave was later shelled in 1918 (multiple military records kept both by family and available online