All you need to know about the Hawaiian Islands in Canada

All you need to know about the Hawaiian Islands in Canada

The "Gulf Islands" region of "British Columbia" province in Canada is a testament to an era when the royal family in the Hawaiian archipelago left their tropical Pacific homeland during a period of internal conflicts to seek refuge in these remote Canadian islands.

All you need to know about the Hawaiian Islands in Canada


On the uninhabited island of Portland, off a path cradled by the frequent passage of animals in the heart of a forest, the grove was waiting for me. Although its trees were forgotten, and even covered in moss, the fruit was surprisingly fresh from apples.


Their taste was saturated with a degree of nostalgia, which made them completely different from any apples you might find now on store shelves. This orchard had a story, and with the passage of time, it threatened to disappear, due to the encroachment of the forest on it and the growth of its trees.


However, it turns out that time stands with this ancient orchard. When I returned last September to this island in the Canadian province of "British Columbia" after 15 years of absence, I found the land surrounding the orchard, completely emptied of weeds and vegetation.


In 2003, this island, with its winding paths, sandstone cliffs and littered beaches of shells and animal bones, became part of a nature reserve that includes the Gulf Islands region. The sprawling reserve, known as the "National Reserve of the Gulf Islands," includes tracts of land spread over 15 islands, as well as countless small islands and coral reefs, located in the Salish Sea.


Over the next 15 years, Canadian experts in archeology and culture studied 17 abandoned orchards in eight of these islands, in order to get a sense of the details of the life of the early settlers of this area.


Among them is John Palau, who says a new sign placed on the island of "Portland", he was among those who grew fruits in that area. That man came to these islands, along with hundreds of Hawaiians, who were among the first to live there.


The "Gulf Islands" region consists of dozens of islands scattered between Vancouver and South Vancouver Island. For thousands of years, this temperate climate and rural landscape remained part of the Salish Sea coast.


The Spaniards arrived there in 1791, before the famous English navigator Captain George Vancouver appeared in the scene, declaring the British Crown supremacy over it. And not long after, the first settlers began to arrive there, from all over the world. Many of them came from Hawaii, to live with black Americans, Portuguese, Japanese, and other eastern Europeans.


And because history can become vague and obscure at times, it was possible for this region to become English in character, and people to believe that it was a spot inhabited by people of white skin only, as she told me over the phone, Jane Barman, historian specializing in the history of the region of "Columbia." British, "noting that" time erases stories that are inconsistent with the favorite narrative "for some.


But during my visit to that area, I began to read more about the first settlers who came to it from Hawaii, sometimes known as "Kanakas," after the Hawaiian word for "person."


Thanks to my reading in this regard, I learned that in the late eighteenth century Hawaii was the scene of internal conflict, which forced its indigenous people, including members of the royal family, to work in the overseas fur trade, after losing their rights and independence as well. The majority of these were men.

All you need to know about the Hawaiian Islands in Canada


Hundreds, if not thousands, of indigenous Hawaiians thus found their way to the west coast of Canada, after joining the Hudson Bay Company.


By 1851, according to some estimates, these residents made up half of the number of people who settled in the "Gulf Islands" region. At the end of the same decade, in conjunction with the strengthening and strengthening of the borders between the United States and the adjacent northern regions, which are now Canada, many settlers from Hawaii, who lived in the southern regions, moved to the north, where they were granted British citizenship.


Once in British Columbia, these newcomers became landowners, farmers and fishermen, before gradually intermarrying with children of the indigenous people of Canada, or belonging to other groups of immigrants, which led to their original identity almost completely dissolving.


But the story of these people came to life again, during the period when scientific studies were conducted, in areas that contain ancient orchards, which led to the recovery of the Canadians who trace their origins back to Hawaii, their heritage and history.


Out of the curiosity that overwhelmed me to know the reason that led to the disappearance of this part of history from the minds, as well as the way in which it was rediscovered, I raised my questions in this regard to the historian Barman, who throughout her scientific career has been searching for historical facts, which have been excluded Or another from history. In response to my questions, Barman said, "I got to know this story by chance during a party." In the late 1980s, a local official named Mel Coffler told her that he believed his ancestors belonged to the indigenous people of the area, and he asked her to help him, to discover more information in this regard.


Barman began her search on the basis of a two-line obituary, only to learn that Couffler had a distant grandmother named Maria Mahoe, a woman who was born on Vancouver Island, around 1855, to a Hawaiian father and an indigenous woman. Mahoe's story has piqued Barman's interest. Her "ordinary life" is an addition to the history of the ethnic diversity of 'British Columbia', and it is something this historian finds more important now than ever.


"The stories people tell about their identity are incomplete," says Barman. "What is repeated on one's tongue is the parts that he is either hesitant about, or proud of." And the historian believes that this explains why many of the "British Columbia" residents with whom I spoke, whose ancestors came from Hawaii, said that they had royal assets, as this is a story that they feel proud of.


While it is likely that these people may already have a royal origin, given that there are members of the Hawaiian royal family who definitely came to British Columbia, it is difficult to trace their origins and biographies.


Among the reasons for this is the difficulties involved in finding detailed and clear records that include data on Hawaiians who came to settle the west coast of Canada. Newcomers from them were usually known by one name or just a surname, not by their full name. Even when it was recording a person's first name and surname, their spelling often changed over time. Therefore, it became difficult to track the life path of the Hawaiians who settled in British Columbia.


For Barman, the stories of ordinary people who lived in this area were of more significance than those of royal lineage. In her 2004 book, "Maria Mahoe of the Islands," she wrote that "contemplating the life of Maria Mahoe, leads us to the realization that we, each of us, matter."


The stories of daily life are important to our collective memory as a society. ”It is striking that knowing the details of Maria Mahoe’s life story, ultimately contributed to helping to shape part of one of the nature reserves in that region.


According to available information about Mahoe's life, she spent her early youth with her first husband, American sea captain Abel Douglas, on board a 40-foot whaling boat.


And since they had children, the family settled on the island of "Salt Spring", especially as the number of its members was increasing. At that time, many families from Hawaii had formed a community on the West Coast, which overlooks the Russell Islands, Portland and Cole.


In any case, Mahoe's first marriage ended, leaving her as a single mother with seven children. After that, she married a person named George Fisher, the fruit of the marriage of a wealthy Englishman, Edward Fisher, and a woman from the indigenous people of the Kaweiken region of British Columbia. The new couple has six more children and built their home on 139 acres of land near Fulford Harbor, at the southern tip of Salt Spring.


In 1902 this situation changed, when he left a vegetable and fruit farmer named William Haumea, whose origins were in Hawaii, a 40-acre plot of land to Mahoe, located on Russell Island.


And because this piece was finer than the family owned in Salt Spring, it was decided to move in. Within a few years, a house was built there, and the fruit orchard expanded into six to eight rows, growing four varieties of apples and three varieties of plums.


The plantations also included mulberry trees, as well as the family raising of chickens and sheep. This family stayed at home until 1959, and their children enjoyed apple pies and dried fruits, along with various types of fish and shellfish soups.

All you need to know about the Hawaiian Islands in Canada


And because much of what we believe forms part of Hawaiian culture is usually associated with women, whether it is the hula dance or the preparation of traditional foods, etc., these cultural aspects did not reach "British Columbia" with the first immigrants of men.


Those from Hawaii, however, made their mark in other ways. They provided the land and volunteer builders needed to build St. Paul's Catholic Church in Fulford Harbor. They also contributed to the creation of the language that was used locally in commerce at that time, and included many vocabulary taken from the language of the Hawaiians.


The cultural heritage was also reflected in the choice of these people for the places they preferred to live in, as the majority of them preferred to settle on the islands whose topography enabled them to continue practicing agricultural and fishing activities as they used to before.


As for Mahoe, she was left for posterity, the home in which her family resided. This small house reveals, with its small entrances as well, the meager physical structures of its original inhabitants, a matter that aroused the curiosity of those who later resided in it.


Over time, as it revealed more about the unique history of Russell Island, a Pacific Marine Heritage Authority acquired the house in 1997. Five years later, the house was considered culturally distinct enough to be part of the 'Gulf Islands National Reserve'. .


I visited Russell Island during a trip to learn about the cultural heritage associated with Hawaii, in the "Gulf Islands" region. There, I took a wonderful path through a forest, and looked out over the beaches on which the indigenous people of that region had established oyster farms.


Then, I made sure not to stumble upon the wildflowers that had grown on the rocky outcrops that I found on my way, and as I walked forward into a forest, she led me to the small house, which once lived the Maria Mahoe family.


BBC

Admin
By : Admin
Welcome to cairotimes24.com. We hope our topics satisfy your interest and admiration. Please do not forget to like our page on Facebook, our page on Twitter and on Pinterest to receive all new
Comments



Font Size
+
16
-
lines height
+
2
-