Dear Editor,
Deep and abiding respect for a community can only be fully achieved when citizens are educated about its history and what has gone into making it the place it is today.
With the exception of Steveston and a few other smaller examples, most of the evidence of Richmond’s long history has been obliterated and forgotten, and of course few people are interested enough to spend time visiting the city archives to learn more.
My family moved to Richmond in the mid-1950s when the tram was still running from Steveston to Marpole and then to downtown Vancouver (wouldn’t it be wonderful to still have it!).
It was 80% farmland with only two small subdivisions yet built, the canneries in Steveston were still in full production and the wharfs were packed with fishing boats, the Massey Tunnel was not yet built and we had to take a ferry across the river to Ladner, and two small bridges linked Lulu Island, Sea Island, and Marpole.
The boarded-up stands of the old Minoru racetrack were hidden in the woods where the community centre now stands, and Brighouse was a small shopping area on a two-lane street with a tram station at one end and a movie theatre at the other.
Thank goodness the Maritime and Salmon festivals and the restored tram in Steveston provide opportunities for citizens and visitors to learn about Richmond’s rich maritime and farming histories, and the periodic profiles of aspects of Richmond’s past printed in this publication also help in keeping those memories alive.
What a community is today is influenced and informed by what it was and did in the past, and we will not be able to fully grasp and respect the rich history of Richmond unless we show interest in and support for what various people, groups, and agencies are doing to keep those memories alive for us.
As novelist Pearl S. Buck once said: “If you want to understand today you have to search yesterday”.
Ray Arnold
Richmond
