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CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Chief Dominic Fredrick of the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation stands in Lheidli T'enneh Memorial Park on Tuesday morning.
Lheidli T'enneh Memorial Park honours local First Nation's history
Charelle EVELYN Citizen staff cevelyn@pgcitizen.ca
s he stood in the vast city park that will soon bear the name of his people, Lheidli T’enneh chief Dominic Frederick had a smile on his face.
“I wasn’t too sure whether it was going to go through or not,” Frederick said of Monday night’s city council vote to change the name of Fort George Park to Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park.
“I wasn’t really hopeful because there was a lot of negativity in regards to that and how it came forth. We grow used to it - make promises and then they’re broken.”
But by a vote of 8-1, the recommendation from Coun. Murry Krause to rename the city space after the local First Nation did pass, despite a torrent of negative reaction posted online and provided directly to members of city council once the proposal became public last week.
Much of that negativity stems from ignorance, said Frederick.
Ignorance of the history of the park site as well as a lack of understanding over what the name change would mean.
“They’re not signing the park over to us. It will still belong to the city of Prince George,” Frederick said.
“The city will still be in charge of it. They’re only changing the name.”
The park was the site of a Lheidli T’enneh village that was destroyed in a 1913 fire set to ensure the sale of the reserve would go through unimpeded.
A marked cemetery is all that remains of the original village, though artifacts and human remains are still buried beneath the grass throughout the entire site.
Understanding the area’s history requires looking further back than any resident’s personal experience with Fort George Park.
And it’s an understanding that began for Krause two decades ago when he began his job as executive director of the Central Interior Native Health Society.
“The last 20 years for me have been wonderful in terms of my education,” said Krause, who also chairs the Union of B.C. Munici-
palities committee on First Nations relations.
Conversations that would eventually lead to the name change began nearly three years ago, after the creation of the city’s 100th anniversary committee.
“No, when we started this discussion, I did not think it would lead to here,” said Krause, who also chairs that group.
He said the committee agreed early on that in celebrating the city’s centennial, there was also a need to be sensitive to the fact it may not be a cause for celebration for everyone.
And in the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report released earlier this month and UBCM work that “encourages local governments to nurture good, functional relationships with their neighbouring First Nation,” Krause said it made more sense to move forward.
“When you take all of that into consideration it was just like it was coming together,” he said. “Especially as national aboriginal day got closer and we’re still within our 100th anniversary year, you start saying ‘why not?’”
Changing the name of a park
isn’t meant to smooth over years of injustice, Krause said.
“Renaming the park doesn’t mean that all of a sudden we have the ultimate relationship we want to have with the Lheidli, but it’s one indicator that we’re walking the walk,” he said, adding a little plaque outside the existing cemetery isn’t a meaningful gesture.
Chief Frederick - who pushed for the word “memorial” to be included in the park’s new name -agreed.
“To the city, it’s one way to show that they’re working towards that reconciliation and a lot of that stuff that went on with the residential schools and so on and trying to wipe out the aboriginal peoples and their names and their sites and their reserves,” Frederick said.
Krause said he knew it wouldn’t be without push back and toyed with the idea of some form of public consultation, but that ultimately - if council was willing - it was something that needed to get done.
One of the chief complaints voiced is confusion over how to pronounce Lheidli T’enneh (think ‘lately ten hay’).
Despite the First Nation’s long history in the area, Frederick says people haven’t been compelled to learn.
“They don’t search or ask people. Or they don’t know who we are. They don’t know who Lheidli is. We’re known as Fort George band, as Shelley Indians, whatever they tagged us with. But they don’t know us as Lheidli,” he said.
During the Canada Winter Games, the band worked to boost their profile, he said, signing on as the first official Host First Nation and setting up a pavilion downtown to showcase Lheidli T’enneh culture and history.
Despite the vocal opposition, Krause said he’s had numerous conversations with people who are for the name change and, having lived in the city his whole life, said Prince George should be portrayed as the progressive community that he said he knows it is.
“It doesn’t matter where you live, you can live in downtown Vancouver and perceive that somehow you’re living in the most progressive city in the world, similar issues can arise,” Krause said.
“These are societal issues that we need to be speaking to.”
School board pressed minister, MLAs on funding
Samantha WRIGHT ALLEN
Citizen staff sallen@pgcitizen.ca
Rural education, sustainable funding and School District 57’s vulnerable students were among the topics trustees raised in a private meeting with B.C.’s education minister Monday.
The district’s seven trustees presented on seven areas of concern to Peter Fassbender after the Innovation Forum was held in Prince George on Monday.
“It was a very respectful meeting, but we didn’t pull any punches,” said chairperson Tony Cable. “We were honest and up front. Basically we covered all the issues that were concerning us.”
That includes Bill 11 - and the fear that it’s an attack on the autonomy of democratically elected boards of education - as well as raises for administrative staff, which are at the same levels as 2009.
The most promising item was around the unique problems faced by rural learners and
FASSBENDER
access to education. Cable said Prince George will host a rural education forum in October to address these issues.
Brenda Hooker noted some schools in Prince George are over 100 per cent capacity,
while some rural schools are at 35 per cent.
“We’re never going to achieve those 100 per cent capacity rate in our rural schools because of declining enrollment,” Hooker said.
“That really impacts our capital funding. We were really able to get (that) message across.” Cable objected to Fassbender’s comments at the forum that the government has increased funding to education.
“That answer’s always given and indirectly the Ministry is giving more: the more they gave was to cover contracts that they negotiated with other groups,” Cable said. “They’re not covering MSP premium, and hydro rate (increases).”
“What we say to that is each agency, each branch of the government, each public body has to make priorities. We would like the priority to be public education,” Cable said.
It’s what Hooker called a “philosophical difference” in the approach to education.
“(Fassbender) said pretty much ‘the money is the money’ and until the province is in a position to really be able to provide more funding, we kind of have to make do,” she said.
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