“The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future” – Theodore Roosevelt 

I am not sure why, but it never occurred to me that Deep Cove had a history. I always assumed that all the interesting stuff was happening now or was yet to come, but never considered what went into shaping this community. This made it all the more exciting to find out that The Cove has a rich, vibrant and interesting story from its pre-colonial days to the 1900s. Unfortunately, we also came to learn that this history is being lost to the sands of time as we speak. The Deep Cove Heritage Society has collections of records that are at risk of never seeing the light of day due to their archaic formatting, including incredible photographs, artifacts and interviews. With this in mind, the PLP 11/12 class made it our mission to create a historical walking tour that shared these stories in an engaging and accessible fashion to our community. We travelled far and wide, interviewed professionals and designed functional products all in the name of answer the driving question: 

Project Launch 

Before our project of being historians could begin, we needed to figure out what exactly we meant to do as historians. This lead us to our first assignment, the Historian’s Oath. According to Historian Jim Grossman, historical thinking is a key concept of being a historian, and “when we talk about historical thinking, we are usually looking at the kinds of questions historians answer…asking a good question means thinking about context, it means trying to figure out what’s important and why it’s important”. In light of this, I contracted in my oath that I wanted my text to inspire historical thinking in others and that it should be both meaningful and engaging to do this. I didn’t just want to share something from history; I wanted to share something and for my audience to be able to take away the “so what?”.

After completing our oath, it was time to get reacquainted with the Socratic Seminar as a means of discussing the controversial White Paper of 1969. To prepare for this discussion, I used a similar writing process as I did during our We Shall Overcome seminars last year. I researched the topic, highlighted important notes, and then combined what I could to plan flushed out potential points and questions. I am glad that I did this preparation as I was able to begin our seminar with the first question

 “Did the 1979 White Paper, considering both the threat to First Nations culture it posed and the reclaiming of culture it sparked, create more harm or good?”

I personally thought this discussion went quite well. I was able to bring in external research I completed on the Red Paper and Residency to help drive the conversation deeper and communicate my ideas clearly. However, I feel I focused more on getting my points across than building off of my classmates and want to improve in the future by balancing these two areas better. 

Exploration 

With our minds now set as historians, it was time to begin the task at hand. Before we could research stories of Deep Cove, we needed to find them and thus were sent off into the community to choose a topic of interest. I decided that I wanted to cover the treatment of local wildlife as I am passionate about its protection and it is a relevant topic with the recent black bear shootings. With this in mind, I decided that the site of the shooting of Plum the bear would be my focal point: 

Once I had my topic, it was time to research. The place I started off to build my foundation was the Echoes Across Seymour book put out by the Deep Cove Heritage Society. I knew this source would be an excellent starting point as it came from an official, accurate and reliable organization. However, this book was lengthy so I had to pick and choose the most relevant information which was challenging. A good way to do this however was refer back to the “so what?” question and see what info had significant meaning.

From this book, I branched out to researching from a variety of websites, articles and reached out to four local wildlife organizations for interviews about the changing historical perspectives on wildlife. I wanted to make sure I had diverse enough sources that I was sufficiently covering both the past and the present. I also wanted to make sure that my sources were all reliable and accurate which I ensured by cross-checking them with each other, using the website mediabiasfactcheck.com and tended towards using local sources instead of ones generally under the banner of “wildlife”. From this research, I was prepared to complete Milestone 3. This involved curating this research along with creating paragraphs for both a pamphlet we were creating and a Google Map. For a topic as sensitive as wildlife shootings, it was important that I did not allow my personal bias to impact the accuracy of the information. To make sure this did not happen, I used the strategy of catching myself using descriptive words, as terms such as “unfortunately” or ”luckily” often hint at a bias. I would then recognize what this bias was and remove it anywhere else I could see it. 

What I found quite interesting to learn from this part of the project was the sheer amount of perspectives that are in Deep Cove. Many are pro-wildlife, as demonstrated in this quote by the executive director of the North Shore Black Bear Society Christine Miller: 

“We live on the North Shore mountains and part of the natural landscape is wildlife. Many people live here because they love nature and that includes a respect for animals that share the space with us.”

Others however were neutral or even biased against wildlife. I also found it interesting what personal biases I had to overcome to understand these sources, such as how I had to overcome my disdain for hunting to understand the necessary role it played in traditional Tsleil-Waututh life. I have also discovered an interesting process to compose research which I like to call “The Jigsaw Puzzle”. What I do is write the criteria for an assignment in black and then I make all my notes red. I then have to fit at least one red with each black and this way I know I am meeting all the criteria. The only thing I would have done differently for this milestone would have been to clarify the length of the required texts before I created them as there was a lot of cutting down to do.

At this point, I was pretty much ready to submit Milestone 3, but as we were nearing the actual launch of our product I wanted to ensure everything was absolutely perfect. What I really wanted to prevent was my personal bias impacting the accuracy of the text, and to do this I followed through with my historian’s oath goal of contacting people outside of our community by pitching my paragraph to my grandparents and also created the chart below to help me understand my potential bias: 

 

As we completed Milestone 3, I realized that I had found another piece to the driving question-answer puzzle. This was that when historians want to discover and share stories of their community they should build off of the work of previous historians. For example, the foundation of the text Echoes Across Seymour was an excellent launch pad that allowed me to discover several of the stories I touch upon in my writings.

The Digital Enhancement 

One of the products which I am the most proud of from this project is my digital enhancement; Our Wild Home: 

This website is an archive of sources categorized under four different wildlife perspectives. It features a bias quiz to help the reader recognize their bias and gives tips on how they can overcome them like I did to better understand the sources. To create this website, I took design processes from actual museums in order to ensure it was as engaging and meaningful as possible. 

Australian Museum Processes
British Columbian Museums Processes 

I am quite glad that I made the choice to create a website as my digital enhancement. It was a smart decision as template features allowed me to breeze through the lengthy design process and put my effort into what really mattered which was the writing and the sources. I am also happy with the way I was able to quickly implement all critique I was given to improve my website further. From this assignment, I of course learned the skill of making a website but also discovered a quick way to find more reliable sources. If you can find one credible source, there will typically be citations to others in that source, and so on and so forth. This part of the project also shed some light on a new aspect of the driving question answer, which is that historians can better share stories about their community by presenting them in an engaging and accessible way (such as a website) to draw in their audience. 

Creation 

After making many revisions to my two contributions, it was time to create the final two products. I decided to take on the role of lead curator for the Google Map group as I saw an opportunity to bring in my leadership skills learned through the Junior Achievement program last year. I first began a brainstorm with my group using the whiteboard, and from this brainstorm facilitated the creation and completion of many tasks. I also made sure to assign tasks to individuals who had strengths in those areas and did not interfere with helping them get them done unless they asked for help. The latter point I am especially proud of as it has taken deliberate effort on my behalf to not take on other people’s work. 

Our Brainstorm

I am glad that I took on this role as I feel it forced me to communicate a lot more clearly and listen effectively. I also learned how to make a Google Map and how to complete a project out of order (e.g. move onto the next task before a previous one is fully completed) which I usually try to stay away from. The only thing I would say that needed to be improved was the focus on communication between the two groups along with the documentation of people’s work. Overall however, this part of the project turned out successful and proved that a key part of discovering and sharing community stories as historians is working together.

Conclusion 

This project was an excellent way to kick off the PLP year. Two feats that I am proud of are putting together the map and creating my digital enhancement as both tread into new learning territory. Not only did I learn how to make a Google Map and a website but how to conduct interviews digitally, how to communicate and lead a larger team, new processes for writing and design and how to recognize and overcome hidden biases. And finally, I learned some of the ways how we as historians can uncover and share stories about our community. We first need to talk to members of our community, and then follow the works of previous historians. From here, we need to present our knowledge in an engaging, accessible and meaningful way which can be best achieved by working as a team.

Our Completed Google Map (click to view!) 

I call this project an excellent success, and can’t wait for future ones! 

Works Cited 

Miller , Christine. Interview with Christine Miller. 30 Sept. 2020.

 

“North Shore Black Bear Society.” North Shore Black Bear Society, 1 May 2020, https://northshorebears.com/.

 

“This Quote Cannot Be More True, yet so Often the World Forgets the History of the Past and Never Learns … | History Teacher Quote, Historical Quotes, History Quotes.” Pinterest, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/527273068864607258/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2020.

 

“What Is ‘Historical Thinking’? – Historian Jim Grossman in INT’s ENLIGHTENMENT MINUTES.” YouTube, 15 May 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i71veYOUHiw.