Where did your family come from and how how did you get here?
Just about everyone has a story to tell and this summer, thanks to a new exhibit at Port Coquitlam’s Heritage at Leigh Square, you can find out about your neighbours’ journeys and record your own.
Open since May, "PoCo Stories: Journeys and Connections" is timely with Canada Day and the celebration of 150 years of Canada’s confederation, allowing visitors to learn how immigrants came to PoCo, what challenges they faced and how they communicated with loved ones back home.
“Everyone has a journey — even the First Nations people that are here. People have always travelled, coming here or moving to other areas,” explained Steve Smith, who coordinated the exhibit, which will be on display until the end of August.
Using census data and other statistics, Smith put together a timeline of local immigration, languages people spoke on arrival and what technology they used to travel and communicate with one another.
“This is the part of the exhibit that children love the most,” said Kelly Brown, the PoCo museum’s new co-ordinator, pointing to the wide range of old rotary dial-up phones and a magneto wall telephone that you had to crank to get working. “They love the hands-on aspect and playing with the phones.”
In addition, you can a look at the collection of letter-writing tools and artifacts from rail and steamship travel, and plot on a map where your family came from and watch a video about Canada.
The exhibit also acknowledges some of the obstacles people faced to settling here, from discrimination against non-Caucasian job seekers to government restrictions on Japanese people who lived in PoCo and surrounding cities during the Second World War.
“It’s not something we want to focus on but it was a fact of life for some people,” Smith said.
The indigenous community is also acknowledged with artifacts and commissioned artwork, including a beautiful cedar carving by Carman McKay that is part of the museum’s permanent display.
Whether you visit the museum in celebration of Canada’s 150th or just to take in some local flavour over the summer vacation, "PoCo Stories: Journeys and Connections" will give you a greater understanding of the role immigration played in the development of PoCo over the last century.
