British Columbia: An Untold History

Summary Retelling the history of British Columbia from a diverse and inclusive perspective - Indigenous, Chinese, Japanese, Punjabi, Black, and European stories are woven together for an astute look at the complicated histories that shaped BC. View more details

British Columbia: An Untold History

Directed : Unknown

Written : Unknown

Stars : Shane Koyczan Jean Barman John Lutz Mark Forsythe

8.4

Details

Genres : Documentary

Release date : Jul 17, 2022

Countries of origin : Canada

Language : English

Filming locations : Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada

Production companies : Screen Siren Pictures

Summary Retelling the history of British Columbia from a diverse and inclusive perspective - Indigenous, Chinese, Japanese, Punjabi, Black, and European stories are woven together for an astute look at the complicated histories that shaped BC. View more details

Details

Genres : Documentary

Release date : Jul 17, 2022

Countries of origin : Canada

Language : English

Filming locations : Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada

Production companies : Screen Siren Pictures

Episode 3 • Oct 25, 2021
Migration + Resilience
The indigenous population has inhabited what is today called British Columbia for a few thousand years. It has only been the last two and half centuries that other ethnic groups began migrating to the area for whatever reason, most in search of a better life than from where they came. When the British starting migrating there in the mid-nineteenth century, there was already a significant Chinese population in addition to the existing indigenous population. The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR), which was largely built on the backs and lives (in that many did not survive the dangerous work) of the Chinese, opened up British Columbia to migration from the rest of Canada, which meant primarily white people of British ancestry. The established geopolitical system being British allowed for the enactment of policies and legislation which not only discriminated against the existing indigenous and Chinese populations, but made it difficult for people of color in general to migrate to what was now British Columbia - not only the Chinese (although much legislation was directed specifically at limiting Chinese migration), but other east Asians, primarily Japanese, south Asians, and to a lesser extent blacks migrating from the United States. Stories of the Japanese internment during WWII, the persecution of the Doukhobors, an already globally marginalized ethnic group, in the 1940s, and American contentious objectors - also referred to as draft dodgers - of the 1960s and 1970s are also told as part of the migration aspect of British Columbia's history.
Episode 4 • Nov 01, 2021
Nature + Co-Existence
British Columbia is largely renowned for its nature: in the natural beauty of such, the inherent desirability of that beauty, and the economic value of what can be extracted from it for global markets. Those natural resource sectors have largely been the trifecta of forestry - on which the province largely thrived economically - mining and fishing, centered largely on salmon, but which started with the fur trade, most specifically the harvesting of sea otter pelts, and whaling. The initial belief in any of this resource extraction has led to a near collapse of many of the resources themselves, leading to a strong environmental activism having emerged in the province, with Vancouver-based Greenpeace being one of the first globally known environmental activism organizations. Such groups and individuals have largely espoused the opposite end of the spectrum in protection at all cost. In the middle has been the indigenous population, who have historically worked on their traditional principles of having a symbiotic relationship with nature, with certain creatures, such as whales and salmon, having a special meaning culturally. While the indigenous population has largely been caught in the middle, they have also been proverbially manhandled by various levels of government, as the indigenous peoples have strove and still strive for self-determination and management of the resources on what is considered by many, indigenous or not, on land stolen from them. Beyond the aforementioned resources, another discussed in detail is the hydroelectric industry which in its development, in an effort to satisfy the new want for a affluent society in general in the 1950s and 1960s, ended up displacing many indigenous nations especially in northern British Columbia whose ancestral lands, on which they were tied, were flooded in the process in the name of development.

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