Downtown Chilliwack
Historic photographs and video of Downtown Chilliwack. Photographs (c) Chilliwack Museum and Archives.
East Chilliwack
Historic photographs and modern video showing East Chilliwack. (c) Chilliwack Museum and Archives.
Welcome to the Chilliwack Archives
Sarah Maleska, 2013 summer student, takes you on a tour of the Chilliwack Archives. What you will find here and how you can access the records.
Sardis
Historical photographs showing Sardis, BC. (c) Chilliwack Museum and Archives
Chilliwack: Inside and Out Downtown Walking Tour
The Chilliwack Museum offers a self-guided historical walking tour of downtown Chilliwack, BC. Bring your group, family or class!
Photos and video (c) Chilliwack Museum and Archives 2010.
CHILLIWACK - Cultus Lake | British Columbia, Canada| Things to do in Chilliwack, BC,
The city of Chilliwack is the 7th largest city in Beautiful British Columbia. Chilliwack is surrounded by mountains, lakes and agricultural firm lands. It is blessed with quite a few recreational places such as Cultus Lake, Chilliwack Lake Provincial Parks, Bridal Veil Falls Provincial Park, Elk Mountain and Chilliwack Museum & Archives. While the Parks offer both front-country and backcountry camping experience, the top of Elk Mountain offers a spectacular view of Chilliwack, Cultus Lake, and the surrounding Fraser Valley area.
Things to do in Chilliwack - Hiking, Mountain Biking, Cyclising, Fishing, Skiing, Camping, Winery, Vineyard, Lake, Mountain, waterfall, museum, picnicking
Some Great Accommodations in Chilliwack:
Hampton Inn by Hilton Chilliwack, 8050 Lickman Rd Chilliwack BC
Coast Chilliwack Hotel, 45920 First Avenue Chilliwack BC
Travelodge Hotel Chilliwack, 45466 Yale Road West Chilliwack BC
SureStay Hotel by Best Western Chilliwack,43971 Industrial Way
Vedder River Inn, 5788 Vedder Road Chilliwack BC
Chilliwack's Chinatowns: Tenant Farming | Les quartiers chinois de Chilliwack : Le fermage
Dr. Chad Reimer, author of Chilliwack's Chinatowns (Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia, 2011) was interviewed in December 2016 by the Chilliwack Museum and Archives. In this video, Dr. Reimer discusses Chinese contributions to agriculture in Chilliwack, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canadian Museum of History in the creation of our virtual exhibition, Chilliwack's Chinatowns: A Story of Diversity, Racism, and Arson.
Transcript:
Tenant farming develops where a Chinese immigrant would entre into a white immigrant farmer, who owned the land, would entre into an agreement where they would say you get, you know, here is these, are these five acres of land, and you agree to clear this land, put it into production, of, mostly it was feed product, like it was potatoes and mangoes and that, for cattle, dairy cows. You agree to clear the land, put it into production, and in exchange for that you get the produce of what you grow. The biggest operation of that, like the Edenbank, the Wells family, entered into a number of those. Charles Evans, where Evans road is, and especially the heritage buildings, those red buildings, that was called “China Ranch” because a large amount of acreage was given over to Chinese tenant farmers.
Yarrow
Video Montage showing the community of Yarrow, British Columbia.
May Health, Peace and Contentment be Yours - Exhibit Trailer
This is a trailer of a larger movie which is available on exhibit at the Chilliwack Museum. Come see the exhibit about healthcare at the Chilliwack Museum running from March 15 - March 2013. chilliwackmuseum.ca.
Chilliwack's Chinatowns: Beginnings | Les quartiers chinois de Chilliwack : Les premiers temps
Dr. Chad Reimer, author of Chilliwack's Chinatowns (Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia, 2011) was interviewed in December 2016 by the Chilliwack Museum and Archives about the historical background of Chinese immigration to Canada, and to the Chilliwack area in particular.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canadian Museum of History in the creation of our virtual exhibition, Chilliwack's Chinatowns: A Story of Diversity, Racism, and Arson.
Transcript:
[What] most people don’t know is that Chilliwack had not just one Chinatown, but two. The first developed on Young road just north of Five Corners. There were also a couple of businessmen right in around Five Corners. And that was around the turn of the, you know, previous century, 1800s, 1900s. And then the Chinese population moved northward to just outside city limits to Yale road, which is pretty much where Chilliwack starts when you come off the highway and go on Yale road, travelling north. And that was a very vibrant community. And from the 1870s on you get a good trickle of, more than a trickle of, Chinese coming into the area to work on farms.
Vedder Crossing
Historic photographs showing the Vedder Crossing area of Chilliwack, BC. (C) Chilliwack Museum and Archives.
Greendale
Video montage showing historic photographs and modern video of Greendale, British Columbia. (c) Chilliwack Museum and Archives
Promontory
Historical photographs of Promontory, Chilliwack. (c) Chilliwack Museum and Archives
myVancouver Chilliwack Museum
We hang out at the Chilliwack museum to learn more about this historic town. Since 1958, the museum has housed the story of the Chilliwack community, exhibiting over 100,000 photographs and artifacts. myVancouver (arts & culture) Episode #318. Airdate: May 11, 2012.
Grietha VanGameran Interview
We asked some supporters of the Chilliwack Museum to speak about the value a community museum can bring to the community. Here's Grietha's Interview.
Cultus Lake
Photo and video montage of Cultus Lake. Photos from the Chilliwack Museum and Archives.
Canadian Military Preservation Society Museum with Narration
Canadian Military Preservation Society Museum with Allan Kerr
Chilliwack's Chinatowns: Racism | Les quartiers chinois de Chilliwack : Le racisme
Dr. Chad Reimer, author of Chilliwack's Chinatowns (Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia, 2011) was interviewed in December 2016 by the Chilliwack Museum and Archives. In this video, Dr. Reimer describes some of the prevalent racism and anti-Chinese sentiment that typified British Columbia in the early 20th century.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canadian Museum of History in the creation of our virtual exhibition, Chilliwack's Chinatowns: A Story of Diversity, Racism, and Arson.
Transcript:
Anti-Chinese sentiment was like the air whites breathed in British Columbia. It was just unquestioned; it was not something that needed to be expressed. And it existed in Chilliwack. There were some who recognized, like, the Evans family was unusually sympathetic and perceptive about the contributions of both the local Stó:ló and the Chinese. The McCutcheon family as well. John McCutcheon was the one who sold the land that was Chinatown North to the Chinese. And his granddaughters remembered going there as children, and being guests of Wong Yip Shee, watching the New Year’s celebrations. And you do have truly affectionate feelings developed between families and the domestic nannies and so forth. But by in large it was a very negative attitude towards Chinese; flat out racist. The city wanted to get the Chinese buildings outside of city limits. And so from when they succeed, and that Chinatown North is outside of city limits, when they succeed they kind of cut back on the raids. Just before and after the First World War you have a huge population influx, so by that time the farmers could get labourers elsewhere, and that’s when you start having the campaigns against Chinese farmers as competitors. It was the Chinese farmers who and first cleared the land, and the white farmers had gone into this tenant agreement thing with them to then put potatoes in, so they had done this deal and after the First World War had said “we can’t do this anymore. We are making a commitment as farmers not to lease land to Chinese people; Chinese farmers. We have to be, you know, a white industry”.
Welcome to the BC Archives
An orientation and overview to the BC Archives - where we are, what we do, what we have, how to access our collections. We acquire, preserve and share the documentary heritage of the province of BC. Visit us to explore not just the history, but the stories of British Columbia. Whether you’re a seasoned genealogist or a student researching a project, we have the resources and staff to point you in the right direction.
Chilliwack's Chinatowns: Fires | Les quartiers chinois de Chilliwack : Les incendies
Dr. Chad Reimer, author of Chilliwack's Chinatowns (Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia, 2011) was interviewed in December 2016 by the Chilliwack Museum and Archives. In this video, Dr. Reimer describes some of the fires that contributed the displacement and eventual decline of Chilliwack's once-flourishing Chinese community.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canadian Museum of History in the creation of our virtual exhibition, Chilliwack's Chinatowns: A Story of Diversity, Racism, and Arson.
Transcript:
In November of ’21, during a snowstorm, fire broke out in Chinatown North. These houses are straight wood, I mean, and they went up fast. The two large buildings that would have served as stores and boarding houses; so forth. Now, the Chinese Times, which was the newspaper for the Chinese language newspaper in Vancouver; the Chinese Times had a different story of course, and they even talked about how the Chinese consul, the diplomatic representative, went out to Chilliwack to check on, you know, thinking this was a fire that was set. Nobody was convicted for it, even though they did have an arrest. Now if this had been a one off, you could have said “well okay, you know maybe the guy didn’t set it, maybe it was an accident”, then, you know, it wouldn’t have been too puzzling or disturbing. Then in 1932, large fire, you know like just a-; the first devastating fire that wiped out all of the building on one, one side, and it, on one side of the Masonic hall. Now the, the Chinese reinvested, rebuilt that side, and including the Masonic hall. What was lost; there were no lives lost but what was lost were the records that had been in the Masonic hall, which we might have been able to access as historians. Two years later, 1934, another fire which destroyed all of the buildings on the other side, and half of the buildings on, on; all the buildings on the west side and half the buildings on the east. The official story was that in the back of one of the, the, the stores at three in the morning This was in August, you had some Chinese borders sleeping, you know it’s summer, nice and warm. They had a fire going overnight and it got out of hand and burnt the whole thing. If I was sleeping in August in Chilliwack I don’t think I’d need a fire through the middle of the night. So, it was quite possibly, verging on probably, that it was an intentional fire. That was the last straw for most of them.