Stir Q&A: British Columbia: An Untold History director Kevin Eastwood untangles province's complex century-and-a-half
Series debuting at VIFF and on Knowledge Network retells this province’s extraordinary past from an array of racial perspectives
Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw dance troupe Quatsino, at a potlatch in BC, circa 1895 to 1898, in an archival image from British Columbia: Untold Stories, Episode 1. Photo: Benjamin W. Leeson/City of Vancouver Archives
VIFF screens British Columbia: An Untold History Episode 1 at the Vancity Theatre on October 8 at 8 pm at the Vancity Theatre, followed by a Creator Talk. The Knowledge Network broadcasts the series on TV and online starting October 12
THE NEW DOCUMENTARY series British Columbia: An Untold History sets out to shade in the missing gaps in this province’s past—and provide a fuller picture than most of us have ever gotten from textbooks.
The sweeping four-episode project features interviews tracing Indigenous, Chinese, Japanese, South Asian, Black, and European experiences here, interwoven with vivid archival footage and photographs, and vast shots of the dramatic landscape that has helped shape BC history.
Directed by Kevin Eastwood, executive produced by Trish Dolman, and produced by Leena Minifie for Screen Siren Pictures, Untold History debuts its first episode at the Vancouver International Film Festival this week, and on the Knowledge Network next week.
What comes across watching it is the momentous scale of the task. The team has organized dozens of stories into thoughtfully themed chapters. Episode 1, “Change + Resistance” uncovers the Indigenous resistance that happened during the Fraser Canyon War between the the Nlaka'pamux people and white miners, through to the fallout from the Indian Act and its residential schools. Episode 2, “Labour + Persistence” exposes the exploitation of racialized workers in BC’s risky resource industries, and the eventual formation of unions. Episode 3, “Migration + Resilience” starts with the arrival of Chinese railroad workers, and traces history through to Japanese internment, and the immigration of Doukhobors and American war resisters. And Episode 4, “Nature + Co-Existence” looks at Indigenous land stewardship, the fight to protect old-growth forests, and the birth of co-management.
Together, the series forms a detailed, complex, and often messy and painful picture—exposing the paving stones for issues this place continues to grapple with. There’s the story of Dan Cranmer’s potlatch, held in secret in 1921 on remote Village Island; 300 people journeyed there to attend, leading to mass arrests when authorities found out the banned gathering had happened. And there’s the full tale of municipal neglect and propaganda that preceded the demolition of Hogan’s Alley, Vancouver’s thriving Black community, to make way for the Georgia Viaduct. Other, smaller anecdotes also add a human dimension to historical facts. One interviewee remembers groups of male elders patting him on his head as he walked through Chinatown as a child—a precious novelty to the Chinese men cut off from their own children by a racist immigration act.
We spoke in-depth with Eastwood, who directed and co-executive-produced the award-winning series Emergency Room: Life + Death at VGH. He and his team spent more than a year-and-a-half on this new project, starting with the gathering of 98 true stories, and then parsing those down and forming them into cohesive episodes.
Below, in excerpts from the conversation, he speaks about the scale of Untold Stories, the need to centre it in human experience, and some of his more eye-opening discoveries.
What’s interesting about this project is that it started with stories.
“It was important that we had an emotional, compelling narrative that people would be pulled into. People are more likely to absorb heavy stuff or abstract subject matter and ideas if they’re delivered in something with a really compelling story to connect to.”
Did you set out with a mandate to tell the history of the province from diverse points of view, in a way it hadn’t been told before? How did you approach that?
“To be honest, the occasion of the 150th anniversary of BC joining confederation was a jumping off point. But I would say the team that was assembled really identified these stories, and we had a very diverse crew behind the scenes, and so that was more of the impetus for telling stories that are often not told in history series. We didn’t want to perpetuate the colonial narrative that often gets done, and Knowledge Network embraced that.”
Filmmaker Kevin Eastwood.
Was this eye opening for you from what you’d been taught in all your history classes back in school?
“I’ve lived in British Columbia all my life and I thought I had a pretty decent understanding of a lot of the broad strokes, but I was blown away by how much I learned. And that goes to those untold racialized stories of communities that are often marginalized.
“Even in my own city: I had no idea the things that had happened in Stanley Park, both the Indigenous communities that had lived there, but also that there were the Kanakas—it’s where the Hawaiians had gone when they first came here. And even the fact that we had a substantial Hawaiian community was new to me, and then a lot of new Chinese Canadians had lived in Stanley Park, and they were all kicked out—literally had their homes torn down and burned down, and that was really shocking to me. I used to live in the West End and I would walk by the plaque that says something along the lines of “to the use and enjoyment of people of all colours, creeds, and customs for all time, I name thee Stanley Park” [dedicated by Lord Stanley in 1889]. And I used to always love that sign, but I realize now that was a bit of packaging and not really reflective of what that park was when it was created. People lived there and it was turned into, generally, a gathering point for white settlers.
“And I certainly didn’t know the history of the Fraser Canyon War, which we open the series with. That really is the whole reason that the political construct of British Columbia exists. Had it not been for the events there, where I’m standing right now in Vancouver very well could have been American soil. So all of that was hugely eye-opening.”
When you mention that one, I’m reminded by how much the series’ oral history, especially Indigenous oral history, brings to the table.
“I know some people might actually bristle at us calling this Untold History because certainly all of our Indigenous subjects knew all of these stories. In many communities, this stuff was not just known, but widely known, and so I feel that shows the barrier of what gets talked about in the mainstream culture.”
Obviously you had hours and hours of interviews and thousands of documents and archival photos. Can you give me some sense quantitatively of what you had to pore through?
“Oh yes, it was immense. We created a whole digital interface to sort of sift through and organize archival materials that were coming in.
“I think episode 2 alone has 800 archival photos in it; they all have hundreds in each episode. But that’s the product of a lot of work by our archival team; we have a bunch of archival researchers and also just the oversight by the producers.”
Were there some gasp-worthy discoveries in the footage or photographs that stopped you in your tracks?
“It’s a photo of the anti-Asian riot—that photo of a group of people standing in front of the shattered windows of a Japanese Canadian business whose storefront has been smashed in the riot. In that image you see white settler police, you see the Japanese Canadian woman in the store, and then you see some South Asian men on the side. And we used that to illustrate everything that had happened. I knew about the anti-Asian riots that had happened in Vancouver but I didn’t know that they seem to have been inspired by the anti-South-Asian riots south of the border in Washington—and you really do realize that these things overlap and connect. I just find that a really evocative image because it suggests the history of this place all in one frame.
“And then there are also the mugshots that are in the city archives. Those were just on display this past winter at the [Vancouver] Police Museum, and I went and saw them. They are haunting portraits of people who don’t usually make it into the public record of the city archives. It’s seeing the faces of people of colour of early Vancouver, taken not in a portrait studio but of people who were just pulled off the street and arrested. Even though we only show 12 or 14 in the episode, I pored through a whole digital book of them. And I spent a lot of time just staring at those, and every time I would see another pair of eyes just looking at me through my screen. I was just struck by those.”
Damage done to the property of Nishimura Masuya on Powell Street in the anti-Asian riots of September 1907. Photo: Library and Archives Canada
I was also struck, because it’s been so much in the news, by the film footage you found of the residential schools when they were in operation—and in particular of the Kamloops residential school where they have found the unmarked graves.
“There’s been so many things that have happened since we finished the show that I never would have expected. I mean the very first interview that we see in the show is with [Secwépemc linguist, anthropologist, and author] Marianne Ignace and that is in a pit house thats on the site of the Secwépemc grounds. And we spent time there and took shots of the Kamloops residential school. We had only finished editing the show when that story broke. Those shots resonate in such a different way now. And there’s the fact it’s one of the last shots you see in the series: when we talk about Truth and Reconciliation, we cut to a shot of that—and that was done long before we knew what that place would come to signify now.”
What are the things about this place, about BC, that you really took away from this experience and that you hope that audiences also take away?
"I feel like I have a more complete understanding of this place that I’ve known all my life. I still love this place but I don’t love some of the nasty parts of this history. I’ve had a tough time even referring to this place as British Columbia because I know that's a relatively new name and an incredibly politically loaded term. There's a lot of atrocities, but we’ve also tried to find the moments that are inspiring or that reflect people doing good—whether that's the defiance of Dan Cranmer’s potlatch saying, 'No, you aren’t going to destroy our culture and our way of life; we’re going to stand up and resist', or the moments of solidarity—when you hear about the Japanese Canadians and the Chinese Canadians literally rallying together against the white rioting racists in Vancouver. All of those things moved me—I feel a lot of incredible stuff and bravery and it gives me hope."
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