Great Fire event recalls heroics of First Nations
On June 13, 1886, the nine-weekold city of Vancouver was wiped out in the Great Fire.
“The fire started by the area where the Roundhouse is now and got into the debris (of slash piles), because they were doing a lot of logging,” said Lisa Smith, author of an acclaimed history of the inferno, Vancouver is Ashes (Ronsdale Press).
“There had been a three-week dry spell with no rain, so everything was just bone dry. The fire got into (the debris) and was totally out of control, and descended upon Vancouver without warning, so a lot of people were caught off guard.
“There was a constant smell of smoke in the air, so nobody really connected the dots until it was almost too late and (people) had to bail into Burrard Inlet to save themselves.”
It was a chaotic scene, partly because winds whipped the blaze through the city in only 45 minutes.
“There was about 3,000 people in the city at that time, and there was nowhere to go except into the water, basically, for a lot of them,” said Smith.
“I’m not sure how deep the water was offshore at that time, but I suspect there wasn’t much in the way of shallows, it just dropped right off. There would have been women in long dresses that would have weighted them down.
“People were just grabbing onto whatever they could find, they were creating makeshift rafts and grabbing floating barrels . ... ”
On the North Shore, members of the Squamish First Nation could see the fire spread. So they jumped into their canoes and quickly paddled across the inlet.
“They were instrumental in the rescue of a lot of people,” said Smith.
Smith thought their contribution during the Great Fire should be commemorated.
So at 1 p.m. this Saturday, the Hastings Mill Store Museum will be hosting the Paddle Song, “a thank you to the Indigenous first responders during the Great Vancouver Fire of 1886.”
The event will include a declaration of gratitude from the Native Daughters of B.C., the pioneer group that runs the museum, the last remnant of Vancouver’s first commercial lumber mlll. There will also be a performance by Marissa Nahanee of the Squamish Nation, Indigenous herbal tea by Raven Hummingbird and a fashion display by antique fashion guru Ivan Sayers.
There will even be a replica of the famed “Tent City Hall,” where city council met in the aftermath of the fire.
“The idea was spawned by one of our associate members, Parker McIntosh, who’s really into recreating historical scenes and dressing in historical fashion,” said Smith, who will be donning 1880s dress herself.
“He owns a canvas tent and wanted to erect it outside the museum, basically to create a replica of the famous tent-city hall scene. We thought we should really build an event around it, so we thought it would be nice to offer this expression of gratitude.”
The celebration is called the Paddle Song because the First Nations’ rescuers apparently sang it while they were rescuing survivors. It will be sung Saturday by Nahanee, who lives in Ustlawn, the North Shore community where the first responders came from.
The Native Daughters of B.C. is a group that dates to 1919. The criteria for membership is that you’re a woman over 18 who was born in the province, but they’re now accepting associate members, including men and people born outside B.C. The first associate member was McIntosh.
There used to be a Native Sons of B.C., as well, but the group has basically faded out of existence. Smith is one of only 14 active members of Post One of the Native Daughters, and doesn’t think that any of the seven other posts still meet.
“We have good reason to be active,” said Smith. “Our whole mission now is pretty much to save the store and keep it going.”
The Hastings Mill store was originally on the waterfront at the foot of Dunlevy in Japantown, and is Vancouver’s oldest structure, dating to the late 1860s.
It was barged to its current location at 1575 Alma and Point Grey Road in 1930, refurbished and reopened as a museum.
It’s one of Vancouver’s coolest cultural facilities, brimming with native masks and baskets, vintage photos and collectibles like a model ship made from wood salvaged from the wreck of the S.S. Beaver in 1888.
The collection came from the members, and is quite idiosyncratic — there’s a Victorian “human-hair picture” from 1883 that’s been fashioned into a floral design.
From June 15 to Sept. 15, the museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 1-4 p.m. Admission is by donation.
There had been a three-week dry spell with no rain, so everything was just bone dry. The fire ... was totally out of control, and descended upon Vancouver without warning.