Heritage week is coming up. But why wait?

What is it that our governments, regional, municipal, provincial and federal, don’t–won’t– can’t seem to understand about heritage?
They treat it like it’s an illegitimate child, a nuisance to be slipped a crumb from time to time (usually in response to direct pressure from the community) but otherwise to be treated as of inconsequential value when weighed against other major concerns of society. Will they ever come to realize that heritage is as indispensable–and therefore as un-disposable–as the creation and maintenance of our schools, streets, hospitals and, dare I say it, the Olympics?
Heritage is our national DNA. It’s the fabric that binds Canadians–all of us–from the first of the First Nations to the arrival of Europeans to our present-day multi-cultural society. Quite simply, it’s where we’re from, who we are, and where we’re going.
But if the dismal record of governmental response to heritage issues is any true measure of who we are and where we’re going, we’re unequal to the task and we continue to demonstrate that we don’t recognize or respect what should be the lasting contributions of our forebears. People coming to live in Canada bring with them their own sense of self, their own social and cultural backgrounds and values. These eventually become part of our national mosaic. But what of the pioneers who built this country?
We elect a new government in Ottawa and what do we get? Multi-million dollar cuts to Canadian museums which were already underfunded. Almost weekly, we read of another heritage landmark threatened or lost to neglect or development. Two weeks ago I reported on the Princess Mary Restaurant. A Victoria. landmark for 60 years it was the last tangible connection (other than some artifacts scattered about in museums and private collections) with the world-famous CPR fleet of Princess ships.
Nanaimo recently lost its historic Foundry. This week, a front-page story in the Times-Colonist told of the rapidly deteriorating state of Race Rocks lighthouse, one of the two oldest lighthouses in the province (and, as such, probably the two oldest public structures in Western Canada) which is still in service as an automated light. It was assembled on-site in 1859-60 from pre-cut stones shipped out from England. It’s of the period when Vancouver Island was a crown colony. That’s before there was a British Columbia and as far back as European settlement goes in this province. A frugal federal government turned off the heat in the 1990s and the wind and salt spray are taking their toll.
Fort Rodd Hill Historic Park , which coincidentally includes Race Rocks’ peer, Fisgard lighthouse, and is one of our few success stories, was created in the 1960s. But neighbouring Cole Island which served as a Royal Navy powder magazine has been left to the tender mercies of vandalism and–get this–the cannibalism of many of its bricks for repairs to Fort Rodd Hill.
Last summer Dept. of National Defence officials made a great play of saving several historic buildings from demolition at CFB Esquimalt. Coincidentally, at nearby Work Point Barracks, the architecturally outstanding 1890s Officers Quarters and Mess of the Royal Canadian Artillery Garrison was razed. DND officials had admitted that there was no immediate need to remove the structure which was no longer in use but in good repair, nor had they other plans for the site. They just wanted it down. Despite protests from Esquimalt Municipality and heritage societies, it’s gone.
As the Dept. of National Defence is not bound by heritage statutes it could ignore pleas to save the building. However, even had the Officers’ Quarters been under civilian authority, it’s unlikely that anything could have saved it once the powers-that-be make their decisions. We have the perfect example here in the Cowichan Valley with the impending demolition of our greatest man-made landmark and icon by the Ministry of Transportation–the very ministry whose neglect over the past 20 years of public ‘stewardship’ has condemned the Kinsol Trestle, largest wooden structure of its kind in the British Commonwealth, to decay without a nickel’s worth of maintenance.
It’s even worse, one could argue, in the case of Morden Colliery pithead at South Wellington. The last surviving tipple of Vancouver Island’s great coal mining industry has been a Class A provincial heritage park for 30 years, for crying out loud. But it’s crumbling because the provincial government has greater priorities than our–our–heritage. For several years a group of dedicated volunteers have worked to finance engineering studies which have confirmed that the structure is doomed to catastrophic failure if efforts are not made soon to reinforce its concrete. According to those engineers Morden can be saved. And what a tribute to the thousands of coal miners and their families it would be. If we cared.
I could go on but I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, I know. But I make no apology for raging in defence of our heritage and history. It’s our legacy from those who have gone before us, who built this country that many of us take for granted. Perhaps that’s part of the problem. We should be honouring them and ourselves by saving the best of the past and the present for the future.