To the editor,
The saddest thing is a person who has lost their memory. Sadder still is when a community has lost its memory; or, when a nation or its institutions have lost their memory and their regard for the memory they are called to keep. This is especially sad when this erasure of memory is done deliberately, as in W. W. II when forces facing defeat hastened to destroy evidence of execution camps. Fortunately, this attempt was not totally successful and sites such as Auschwitz now bear testimony for future generations to ponder.
Which brings to mind a local reference.
A recent decision by band referendum to eliminate the church on their premises is a sad day for the collective memory of our valley heritage and history. The St. Peter’s Catholic Church is the sole remaining heritage building in our area through which we may focus the attention of the public on the history, culture, and religious life of a unique native population of our community.The church, built in the 1890s, contains a story to be recorded and told.
Why not preserve this heritage site as a historical resource which can speak to future generations? The Lower Kootenai Band community made many contributions to B. C. and Canada; social, cultural and religious, all deserving of an enlarged part in the public memory.
I suggest that the Church be made a public archive, documenting the mutual existence of the native inhabitants and new arrivals in the valley.
If there were negative aspects provided by the church that too deserves documentation. Archiving the local history and its development the church can be made into a pilgrimage site and interpretive centre on local history, another venue for Canadians to engage and deepen their understanding of the richness of history in British Columbia. It also has tourist potential as one of the few churches on reserve land in B.C.
What are the resources to do this?
Collections of artifacts, historical and ethnographic photographs, and audio recordings through the collaborative work of local historians. Canadian archives and statutes containing statistical information on shifting economical and population numbers to be included. Native exhibitions from museums which can be re-housed, and traveling exhibits brought in by arrangement with the Royal B. C. Museum and the Canadian Museum of History as well as private collections.
Restoration of the church can provide a valuable historic resource in the spirit of resolution and reconciliation, destruction of the church denies future generations archival and historical reference.
At the heart of the matter is another issue: Has the church been de-consecrated? Who really owns the church? [Legally or morally?]
Larry Ewashen
Creston, BC
