Nuanced. - 34. Laura Lee Reid: Heritage Chilliwack & History Researcher

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

Laura Reid is the President and Co-Founder of Heritage Chilliwack, and  a guest service agent at the Royal Hotel Chilliwack. Most notably, Laura works to preserve the rich history of her community. Laura was involved in trying to 'Save the Paramount' and writes blog posts about the community of Chilliwack.Laura was born and raised in B.C. She moved to Chilliwack as a teen and her appreciation of the city’s history began when her family moved into a heritage home. Laura graduated from Chilliwack Senior Secondary and after raising her family in Coquitlam, she and her husband returned to Chilliwack in 2002 and purchased a 1931 home.  In her varied career, Laura has been a small business owner, worked in the film and television industry in props and set decoration and currently works at Chilliwack’s historic Royal Hotel. She has completed courses in heritage and museum studies in the University of Victoria’s Cultural Resource Management Program.Send us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Hello, and thank you for tuning in. My name is Aaron Pete, and I'm the host of The Bigger Than Me podcast. I've received a little bit of feedback saying that the introductions are a little bit dry, and so I'm switching this one up. I'm just going to speak about why I thought Laura would be a good guest, and then we'll get right into the interview. So I first met Laura through Save the Paramount. It was my first introduction into engaging in civic activities and believing that my voice mattered, and she was incredibly supportive and she had developed her own coalition of support to try and save a theatre in the city of Chiluac.

From there, I began working with her through the Royal Hotel Chiluac, which was over a hundred-year-old hotel, and that was my first real job, and I've had Leonard Weans as a guest on the podcast, and him and I talked about starting that position and the impact that that had on my development, and what it means to give a young woman,

person an opportunity and to give them trust. So through that work at the Royal Hotel, Laura also started Heritage Chilliwack. And my goal has been to try and highlight local role models. And they're not always the people that jump out at you. They're not always the people who are constantly in the news. They're people who are just working hard to protect and preserve our community. And that's how Laura stood out to me. She has always worked hard to preserve the information and history of our community and really recognize the people who played a vital role in that. And I think that that deserves a recognition. And it was an absolute pleasure to sit down with her because we go through some of the

stories of the Royal Hotel Chilawak, some of the spooky stories. I know Halloween is coming up, so I'm hoping that that will have a positive impact on listeners to be able to kind of connect the spooky with culture and community and to have a reason to want to tune in and learn more about the community's history. And then from there we talk about her background and what she's been involved in and how she came to enjoy history. Because for a lot of young people, history is not the most interesting or the most engaging topics. And that's something I'm hoping to break down is history is important. And we've all heard those those sayings of those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

So my hope is that she'll kind of inspire other people to consider what is their community's history or why enjoy and look at. into history. Why does it matter? We talk about that. We talk about her development as an entrepreneur and her work trying to build up an understanding of how to approach history, how to approach civic history, and starting Heritage Chilliwack, and how to approach engaging the community. So without further ado, please give it up for my guest, Laura Reed. Laura Reid, it is a pleasure to sit down with you because we've gotten to work together on trying to save the Paramount, the Royal Hotel Chilliwack, and I got to see you start Heritage Chilliwack. And so I'm hoping you can do a brief introduction for us. Great. It's an awesome opportunity, and I feel honored, Erin, that you chose to speak with me.

I didn't grow up in Chilliwack, but I came to love Chilliwack when I came here as a teenager, kind of forced into a situation of leaving the lower mainland and right in the middle of a particular hard time in an adolescence life, entering grade 11 in a brand new high school with, you know, new friends and new experiences. but I came to love Chilliwack after, you know, experiencing it for a couple of years. And so I came to back to Chilliwack about 20 years ago. Wow. Yeah.

Okay, so let's get started, I guess. Let's start with a little bit of the history of where we are, which is the Royal Hotel Chilawak. And then we can move into your personal background, the saving the Paramount, and all of those other steps along the way. But let's start with this amazing environment that we're in right now, the Royal Hotel Chilawak. Chilliwack. Can you tell us a little bit about where we are? Well, sure. We're sitting in the homestead room of the Royal Hotel and this room actually originally was the saloon when the hotel opened. Wow. Yeah. I found an article from 1909 that goes into great depths explaining the size of the rooms and the hotel when it

opened and it explained that this was the saloon and so now it's been transformed into a great meeting and community space. But the hotel here is really a center point of the downtown, in my opinion. It's opened in May 1909 and it's been operating as a hotel ever since. So over 100 years now? Over 100 years old. And one really interesting fun fact is the family that actually ran and owned this hotel, They owned it from 1926 when Mr. Tom Berry Sr. purchased the hotel until 1995 when his son, Buckberry, sold the hotel to its current owner.

So I think the fact that one family, the Barry family, has such a long legacy in the hotel, sort of makes it unique in that regards. And the stories of the family just living and interacting with guests really still. remains today. The stories are still around. People still remember the berries. Right. Can you tell us about them? That's a long time to own a building. It's over 100 years of this building being here. Can you tell us about the Barry family? Well, I'm not really sure why he decided Mr. Tom Barry in 1926 to buy the Royal Hotel. I guess he looked at it as a business opportunity. He had owned a couple of hotels elsewhere in the province. So I guess he just looked at this

is a good opportunity for his family. And back when he purchased the hotel, it was really a family affair. So his family was basically raised in this hotel, being a part of doing everything from housekeeping, looking after

the front desk. In fact, they actually lived in the hotel. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And so what else went on here? Is there any interesting stories about their involvement? Oh, yes. Mr. Tom Berry was a large, jovial man from the information I've read about him. He actually had a heart attack and passed away, unfortunately.

But as I mentioned, the Barry's having living accommodations in the hotel. He actually passed away in his room here at the Royal. And we have kept that room sort of, although it doesn't look the same, it is the same room he passed in. So to keep that memory alive, we call that room zero with really no explanation other than if people ask, why is that room called room zero? Well, it was because it was Tom Barry's room. Right. So it wasn't like at that time, he marked it as zero to say like this isn't like an available room. That's right. Right. Yeah. And so what has the experience has been like from that?

Are there any spooky stories of him? Well, I don't know about particular in Room Zero, but there definitely are stories of people experiencing sort of paranormal activities at different levels in this hotel over the years. Yeah. There's lots of interesting stories that I even have experience with, and if someone would have told me anecdotally that it happened, it's hard to really imagine. Do you want me to share that story? Absolutely. Let's share those stories.

Halloween is coming up, and I think that this is a great way to connect history, a little bit of the paranormal, and the culture of Halloween. Cool. So I did mention about the Barry family. Tom Berry's senior son was called Buck. His name was Thomas, but for some reason they called him Buck. Buck's wife was Louise. And so they, Buck and Louise, really, were at the helm of the hotel for many, many years.

And so, as I mentioned, Louise ran the front desk. Buck sort of oversaw everything from the restaurant, housekeeping. He was in charge. Only about a year after I started here, we had a young housekeeper. And I'm going to say she had only been here maybe two or three months. She was young. She really did not understand or know the history of the hotel other than it was an old hotel. One day she was on the third floor in room 218, which is our jacuzzi suite, doing her work, cleaning.

And she came running down the stairs in an awful hurry. And I was at the front desk. And I'm thinking, what is going on? And she came running down the stairs. very annoyed because she had to come down because she heard someone say Buck and Louise need you downstairs. So she came running down the stairs.

She said, who were Buck and Louise? And what do they want? And I said, Amber Lee, Buck and Louise ran this place for years and they're both dead. So that, I mean, I still tell that story and I get the hair on the back of my arms. She had no idea. And you felt the sincerity in her that she wasn't.

She was annoyed. Yeah. She didn't do it for any. She was annoyed that she had to come. Someone told her to come downstairs, Buckland Louise needed her. Yeah. That is wild. I know.

The story still kind of blows my mind. Yeah. So what else has gone on here? Because from working here, I remember a story of an orb being outside of room zero. and that not being able to be explained. I've heard about waitresses having issues here. Do you have any other stories you can share? Well, you probably remember, Aaron,

we had a guest that was staying here for, I think they were here for a week or two. And the lady of the two, her interest was taking photographs in the empty hallways in the evening. And she's the one that discovered all these orbs. She was photographing. which she said that she couldn't see with her naked eye,

but once she actually photographed, she could see. And I remember her emailing photographs of these orbs, because again, it sounds so out there. But until you actually see it with your own eyes, she actually saw faces in some of these orbs, and I saw a face in one of the orbs. So I don't know if it's the spirits of the people that have passed through, when you think of a hotel that's over a century old, with all the

guests that have come through these doors and walk through the hallways, people have passed here. Buckberry, or pardon me, Tom Berry is not the only one that passed here. Do we have any other stories? I found an obituary in 1910. Again, if people are interested in Jilloax history, I strongly recommend going to the Chilliwack Progress Archives, you can find out so much information by looking at the old progress newspapers. Because let's remember, back 100 years ago, or even less than 100 years ago, how did we get information? We didn't have social media. For a time, there was no telephones. So the newspaper was a really, big source of information they would post people they would post every day or pardon me every time

the paper was published a list of who is staying in the hotels really yes they would say Hotel Royal and they have a list of Jones Smith from Vancouver or whomever do we know why that was it just was I don't really know yeah because that seems like privacy exactly yeah exactly Exactly, but that was a common thing that they did. They listed people that were staying in the hotels. And so I did a search, and if you search the Royal Hotel, you get way too many hits. So there's an option to actually narrow it down by years. So I started when the hotel opened just to see what I could find.

And I found an obituary of just a very short obituary in the 1910 newspaper. So the hotel had only been opened a year. Wow. And someone had traveled here, and I don't recall where they traveled from, but they traveled with their daughter, who was 10, who got sick and passed away in our hotel. Wow. Because people got flus, and they didn't have medicine, they just died. Right.

And so that's kind of like, that's very sad. I mean, obviously, she, it was very unexpected death. But again, someone passed away in the hotel. Right. And I've heard and seen that there are underground kind of spots within the hotel that acted like as storage. And one of the stories I heard it was a waitress who had to go down under to grab something. And then she heard something. Do you remember that?

I heard the story. No, I didn't hear it all the details. But yes, she was spooked and she wouldn't go down there again. Yeah, she had something, she heard something. or something happened down below and that really freaked her out. What is it like for you? I guess I can speak to my personal experience that at times working from 2.30 to 1030, it gets and when there's nobody in the hotel and you have to do floor checks,

it can be very unnerving, very uncomfortable, even when I'd use the bathrooms in the lobby area, just being in the bathroom in there was spooky to me. We have back rooms and stuff. It's a very unique experience to be here. So what has that been like for you? Even when there's no one here, I never really feel like I'm alone. I don't feel frightened. And never has any guest ever said that they have been frightened by what they felt or heard.

I think just people that are open to interpreting the point. past, maybe have more experiences than others, but never they seem to be frightening experiences, just sort of feelings of people that have passed through. I came to work one afternoon, Aaron, I don't know if you've heard this story, and I was at the front desk, just ready to do a shift change, and someone in the cafe said, did you see that? And I looked, and I said, see what? He said, I just saw a lady in a white nightgown go up the stairs.

Yeah. So who knows, right? Yes, my only real experience with something spooky kind of happening is the Royal Cafe had the locked door, like it has the pullover. So it's separated from the hotel at night. And I heard somebody in the cafe area in the back room. And I assumed that it was the past owners of the cafe because they would go in and and do some sort of work at night so I was like you know what it's probably nothing I'm just freaking myself out so I'll go check and it wasn't 30 seconds that I was in the back with a flashlight

going through and realized that there was no car I checked the cameras there was no one who had pulled in who was doing it heard something I heard something but it was more like pots and pens just kind of jangling around it didn't seem like anybody was purposefully making sense it just sounded like they were working yeah and so having that experience it was like it always kind of stayed with me and as I said when I went to the washroom or stepped away from the desk there was always this feeling of like something could I could go around this corner and something could startle me like and and have that that weird experience it always felt like it was the next around the corner was the next creepy kind of

experience but did you get frightened no because I obviously stayed so I guess I moved on from the experience, but it was such a unique experience to be somewhere where so many people did have experiences and stories to share. And to me, that's sort of like a, it creates a culture. It creates like a sense of community. And I'm interested to know your thoughts on this is that there's so many people who have spent so much time in this building who have, I used to work there and people would come in for lunch and people would come in for meetings and say, yeah, like, I used to work as a chambermaid or I used to work as a cook in the back or a waitress and so many people have stories here and have a connection to this building and so I'm interested to know

what that experience has been like for you well as I've learned to appreciate history it's I've also learned that history is not specifically about buildings yeah more importantly it's the stories of the people that inhabit the buildings so you Yes, this is a great old building, but if we didn't have stories from the people, from the past, of all the experiences that have occurred here, all the milestones for people celebrating, celebrating, turning old enough to go to the bar, working here, maybe their first job here, maybe their first beer here, their parents coming here for anniversary parties. So not only just our generation, your generation, but even generations before, the stories go way back and the stories are still around.

People still come with stories. They come with stories about the family that ran the cafe, which was a Chinese family, and they were very famous for their Chinese food. In fact, in the years I've worked here, people would come in and say, oh, did they still make Chinese food in the cafe? So the memories of the Chinese food are still high in people's memories. So they're really good memories, for sure. That's amazing. Can we also talk a little bit more about the Berry family? Because there are stories that I heard of horses being in the hotel or near the hotel, of people being tied up, of separate entrances.

for women and males. Can you share some of those stories? Well, the horse story, there actually, was alcohol involved in a bet. So I don't know the connection, but one of the berries bet someone that they would not bring their horse into the hotel. But, as again, alcohol was involved, and the gentleman brought his horse into the lobby. And I believe the horse even went up the stairs. We do have a little bit of a story about that particular incident in the hotel, so.

Interesting. And so I've also heard about something going on with Mr. Berry and somebody being, like, tied up or something outside or something like that. At one point, there were ties in the front of the hotel for horses. Right. So people could actually bring their horse and have a beer. And there's one story I do remember. and it actually may be the same gentleman with the same horse, but I'm not 100% sure. He would come for a few beverages on his horse, and at the end of the evening, he didn't even have to do anything.

The horse would just take him home. The horse just knew where he lived. Wow, that is so wild. And so this hotel has also been around when there used to be separate entrances for men and women. Do we still have those? Well, that goes back to the days of the Royal Hotel. pub, which just in case viewers aren't aware. Buckberry, he was quite a character, and in 1950, when he learned the Royal Bank, which is directly beside the hotel, was going to relocate

to brand new premises at five corners. He took the opportunity and bought the bank. And people were wondering, what is he going to do with the bank? Well, what he did was he added on to the rear of it, a one-story addition. And he... opened in August 1950 a 350-seat beer parlor. Because beer was allowed to be sold by the glass.

And so the laws of the day dictated that. There had to be separate entrances. So it wasn't just him doing it. It was the laws of British Columbia. So men were expected to enter in one door. And the other entrance was for

women and escorts because women weren't expected or were, yeah, they weren't expected to go to a drinking establishment by themselves. Yeah, that seems so out of time now. Oh, it's totally. And not only that, not only the weird laws about the men and the women, for a period of time they had to separate them in the bar. And they had a movable partition.

Yeah. So if there was, you know, more women that night, they could move the wall a bit. Wow. They were quite, the BC liquor laws and the society at the time were worried about sexually transmitted diseases happening when people came to bars. So that was the impetus behind that. Wow, it's so hard to. The fear of sexually transmitted diseases. Yeah, I can't even imagine now.

It's so interesting to learn about our history and how this building holds it. Can you also tell us about the building itself? You've talked to it a little bit about the Royal Bank being taken over the homesteads. bedroom, can you give us a lay of the land of the building? Well, sure. So the hotel itself is a three-story building, and we have 28 guest rooms, and they're all located on the second and third floor, and then mentioning that the Royal Bank was purchased in 1950. What Buck Berry did was he turned the apartments that were above the bank. There was apartments and offices at the time.

turned them into guest rooms. And he connected that part of the bank to the hotel. So we still call those our bank wing rooms because they're directly above the old royal bank. And if you ever been in the rooms, we actually have some historical images of what the bank looked like when it was operating as a bank. Right. So we try to keep the history of the hotel relevant to even today's guests so they feel some sort of connection. Oh, that's interesting. I'm sleeping over the old Royal Bank. Yeah. And so what type of rooms exist here? We have a variety of rooms from our smallest comfort rooms to antique rooms that have vintage furnishings. All of our rooms have beautiful white linen and duvet covers. And we even have a jacuzzi. So we even have a jacuzzi.

on the third floor, which is our largest room in the hotel. It's a two-room suite. It's quite popular. Lots of room to spread out, and one of the rooms has a chakousy in it. That's awesome. And we also have claw-foot tubs here, correct? Some of the rooms actually do have claw-foot tubs. It just depends on what room you get assigned to.

Now, again, when the current owner purchased this hotel, he was the one that did all of the renovations. So he was able to source some of those cloth-foot tubs. They are not original to the hotel. Right. But he did source them and add them to the rooms. And on that note, it may be interesting for people to know that when the hotel first opened, people didn't have private bathrooms.

There was bathrooms down the hall that was shared, which of course now has been remedied and everyone expects a private bathroom so all of our rooms do have private bathrooms. That must have been a lot of work to renovate and put in bathrooms into every room in comparison to one. A huge process.

And that also makes the property unique in the fact that, yeah, there's a few rooms that are similar, but there's many rooms that are not like the others. Right. So it makes it very unique in that sense. Interesting. And then can we talk a little bit about the history of the hotel?

Because it was once struck by lightning. Yes. There's been many fires here at the hotel. Nothing totally devastating. But the most interesting fire occurred in July 1958. We had had a huge heat wave in Chilliwack. And so what happened was thunder and lightning rolled in. after the heat wave and lightning actually struck the roof of the hotel and caught the roof

on fire. Wow. Yeah. What happened there? Was it easily repaired or what was the kind of? Well, there was a lot of damage obviously on the roof and some of the guest rooms were affected. There was a lot of water damage from them trying to fight the fire. Right. But they did come through and get the repairs, necessary repairs done. Yeah. There's a fire. in the pub before. There's been fires in the kitchen. Fires do happen and fire is like the worst enemy of a wooden structure. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about that, about some of the, how do, how is this building maintained? Because it seems like it's getting really good care now. From your perspective, as somebody who cares about history, what have you kind of seen in the

development over the past 20 years of the hotel in terms of the hotel? terms of, I see that there's a business like kind of a stop-in shop at the front entrance. Can you tell us a little bit about the journey of the hotel over the past 20 years? Sure. Well, again, it started with the current owner making a huge financial commitment to restore the property, which he's done, but not only at the time of the purchased and the number of years it took to bring the property up to the level it's at now, but there's constant renovation. And, you're maintenance and repair that is done on this hotel and you may not see it and that's great it's kind of done behind the scenes so whenever there is an issue it is immediately dealt with they are on

top of doing all the repairs and maintenance on the property recently of course we had this huge heat wave this last summer and one of our air conditioning units decided that was a time to break down So that was a huge financial investment to replace that. So our guests obviously would be able to sleep comfortably in the hotel. There was, you know, no hesitation. It was immediately replaced. So there is constantly work being done on this place. Right.

And so what have you kind of seen in terms of the business development? And can you tell us when you started here and what that kind of process has been like since Leonard Wienes has taken over? Yes. Well, Leonard Wienes took over the management of the hotel in 2013, and that's when I was hired. And originally it was Len and the rest of us were on a five-year contract, and we're all still here because I think we have different reasons for staying.

I mean, people have passions for this place. And so they feel compelled to carry on the tradition of the hotel and servicing guests. And it's just a, not only does, do we feel that we're a place for guests, we feel like we're a place for the community to gather with spaces like our meeting spaces that we offer at very, you know, affordable rates so people in the community can access our space. Right. Most recently changes that have occurred is our new keyless door entry system. That was a huge financial investment. to redo all the door hardware and all the entry point doors. So they're all keypad, keyless entries.

So you probably remember, Aaron, when we were at the front desk, we had actual keys that we would hand out. And, of course, when you hand out keys, you always have to be concerned about getting all the keys back, you know, for safety and security. And now this has alleviated that. So each guest, once their reservation is being confirmed, and on their day of arrival, are sent a code. And that code is unique to their stay.

And so they can access the front door. They can get into their guest room door without a key. Wow. That is a huge change and a different experience. It's a different experience, but it started with COVID to find a way to still operate. without having a lot of interaction. And so I think COVID was what instigated this whole change. And I really, really respect what they did.

It would have been a lot easier to just get rid of the old doors, get new doors with the keypads already on the doors or very simply installed. But to retain the integrity of the 100-plus-year-old doors, doors, they were able to find a way to retrofit the doors to accompany or to accommodate the keypad. So that was an extra expense, but I really, as a person that loves history, I really do appreciate that they were trying to keep the doors. We want to keep as much as we can while moving forward into the necessary technology that is required to maintain the business

level. Right. And I had Leonard Wienz on probably a little over a year ago and things weren't looking so great for the hotel at that time. He was very concerned on what COVID was going to do to the Royal Hotel, how they were going to pivot through this. It seems like things are looking up. Can you tell us about that pivot and where we are today? Well, the first thing was doing the keep, all the doors and the key paths, which it took a while to get everything in place. but once we had that system in place, then it made it so much easier to have guests come in and not worried about COVID, you know, talking to people really.

I mean, as much as we really like to interact with guests, it was sort of a necessity to have the business, you know, get back up and running during this whole COVID thing. So it started with a new door keyless entry system. but I must tell you, since June of this year, we have pretty much been at 100% capacity and not only just on the weekends, but during the week. So people are interested in traveling.

They're not traveling as far. We're getting a lot of local people, people from Vancouver, people from other parts of British Columbia, people that are passing through. So we're really, really, really excited that we're our occupancy levels are at record high. Right. And so how has that kind of impacted the experience of the guests

or what have you kind of seen in terms of the changes? Is this all through the Royal Hotel website? Or when Leonard was on, he was talking about Airbnb and some other approaches. What ended up coming of that? So Len is very open-minded and it looks at all options to discover what's the best. way to operate our hotel, and he has a great wealth of knowledge and experience in

hospitality. So again, because of COVID, he had to find a way again to pivot. We started doing the Airbnb because it's more of a check-in-list system anyways that they already had set up. So he started listing our hotel on Airbnb and started getting bookings that way and realized, okay, this is working. How can we expand that? And I think that's where he got the idea of let's go all out, let's change the door locks, let's make it really easy for people. The Airbnb model was working. And so when you book on Airbnb, you don't really expect to have a lot of interaction when you get to the property. And it worked really well. So he expanded on that. And yes, we do have guest services agents on staff and on site, you just might not see them when

you come through the front door. But there are people here all the time. Right. They're just not, you know, it's just not your typical hotel situation where you find someone sitting at the front desk. They're up and about doing other things as well as, you know, looking after guests. Yeah. You've talked a little bit of, and we've talked a little bit about Leonard Weans. Can you tell me about your experience with him because for me it was my first opportunity he gave me my first opportunity of a little bit of freedom a lot of responsibility and a lot of trust in trying to maintain the hotel when he wasn't here and that was a huge change from the fast food model of having somebody kind of overlooking your shoulder every decision you make and i felt like

I've thrived from that experience and that I really am grateful that he trusted me with that and I feel like that helped me grow a lot. What was your experience coming on and having his leadership? I totally mirror what you say in the in the way that Leonard operates the hotel. He gives people the autonomy to make decisions to manage things, to act like you are running the place because if a guest sees that you feel confident and clear in your roles and responsibility, it just gives a better image to the hotel. And I feel that when Leonard hired me, I had zero hotel experience. I did have hospitality experience, but no hotel experience. And I said, I don't have experience working in a hotel. But he saw something, I guess,

in my writing and said, that's great, I can teach you how to work at a hotel, but I'd like you to write as well for the hotel. And so he gave me that freedom to write blog posts for the hotel. And I think that is an amazing opportunity for anyone who is interested in writing, who's interested in history. It was just a perfect opportunity. Can you tell us about some of those blog posts? Sure. I started the blog post probably within the first six months of working here. And so, again, I use the Chiloac Progress Archives to get a lot of, you know, day-to-day information as to what was happening during certain periods of time and what was happening at the hotel. And so I like to write about the history of the hotel, the stories of the families,

again, stories of the berries, things that have happened at the hotel. And then I sort of branched off and started to write also about the history of Chilliwack. So not just of the hotel, because of course, the hotel being a centerpiece of downtown, there's lots of other stories downtown that kind of relate. And so I just, you know, whatever sort of thing came to mind, I would do some research and write a quick blog for the hotel. And I think that helps if people do have an interest, there is that opportunity to read the blogs and find out more. Right. Could we look into your background? You said that you faced some adversity in your childhood in grade 11. Can you tell us about that? Well, adversity is difficult moving when you're a teenager. But it just was a time in

our family when it was the right thing to do, my father had an opportunity to work for the brets. And the brets are a long-time Chilliwack family as well. They have a varied history in Chiluac, but at the time they were running a General Motors car dealership. And so my father had a background and working for General Motors and took the opportunity to take the opportunity, take the opportunity to move to Chilliwack to work for the Brett's. And not only did he work for the Brett's, but the timing worked out where we moved into Earl Brett's house on Gore Avenue in Chiluag because he was moving into a home and didn't need the home anymore.

So we purchased the Brett house from the Brett family. Right. And so moving into that house really opened up my eyes and really made me interest. believe it or not, as a teenager in Chilohax history, I just found that house so interesting and curious and the fact that he moved out but left quite a lot of items in his office, which was located on the property in a separate building. So as a teenager, I would just go through and look at all the documents. There was mining certificates because the family was really involved in mining and logging.

So I really got very curious about the Brett family, having lived in that house. So that's where it all started for you. I think it's where it all started. And can you tell us about that house? What was interesting about it for you? Well, the house itself is rather interesting looking. It was built around 1940. And for those that don't know where it's located, it's on Gore Avenue, directly beside St.

Thomas Anglican Church. And I found out later that at one time that whole property on Gore, which is kind of an odd-shaped piece of property that goes from Young to Nowell, was all owned by St. Thomas, United, or Anglican Church, and they sold off the two lots where there's houses now. And Mr. Brett built his house on that property. So it's kind of a modern-style house. looking. It's got some really cool features. It's got a rounded front doorway and little portholes. It's got a curved, a really cool curved staircase that goes into the second floor.

And when we live there, I found a book in amongst his belongings from the Chilliwack Chamber of Commerce that talked about one of Chiluac's, you know, upcoming residential areas. And it talked about the Mountain View subdivision. It talked about the Brat House. And he imported a lot of furnishings in the house in terms of light fixtures from Italy and Europe. So it was very, very unique. There was a mural painted in the stairway when we got there. It was very, it was like mermaids. But he hired an artist to paint this wacky mural on the wall. So a lot of the things that when we moved in they left their grand piano for a while because they didn't have anywhere to put it so I felt to connect into that family even though I didn't know them at all just because they left some

of their stuff behind and all that information about the businesses that they ran and I learned a lot just by going through his old papers that's so interesting and like an insight into a different family's culture and I think that for someone like myself it's so interesting to hear somebody brought in someone to do a painting on their wall and to make their house at home in that way. Because I've lived in apartments where you don't design, you don't get somebody to come in and paint a certain section or bring in a grand piano. Exactly. Yeah. What was that like for you? Was that a huge transition as well to see? It was. I thought I was living in a mansion. Yeah.

It felt like that. And, you know, that's just my impression. We weren't wealthy people. It just the timing was right for us to be able to purchase that house. And I felt really honored to be able to live in this piece of Chilliwax history. I learned very quickly that it really was a piece of Chilliwax history. Yeah. And then so where did you go from there? What was your, um, your youth like? Well, I left Chilliwack right after I graduated high school and I didn't come back here until 20 years ago. I left and I got married. I raised a family. I worked in various different businesses. I have a varied background for sure when it comes to my working background. What was that experience like those 20 years away, and what was it like to come back?

It was great to come back. I came back after my first marriage had dissolved and had a second husband and wanted to sort of make a new start, which we did. but I had raised a family of two grown adult children that are successful. So those 20 years were really quite busy raising my children and working pretty much full-time during that period. Was this in Vancouver? Yeah, in the Lower Mainland. And I know part of your podcast is talking about mentors

and people you look up to. I had a very unique opportunity to work for a woman-owned business in the 1980s. And I was one of the few women in that business. So I worked for BC Bering, and B.C. B.C. B. B.C. B. B.B.B. was owned by a woman named Wendy McDonald. Okay. And Wendy McDonald, she went through a lot of adversity. Right.

She lost three husbands. Oh, wow. Her first husband had started this business in the 1930s. He went off to war during World War II and never came back. He died. So she was left with a couple of children and this business knew nothing about running a bearing business, a machine shop. But she took the bull by the horns and she turned that business into a multi-million dollar business. She retired in 2000 as the CEO, and she passed away in 2013.

So when I worked at BC Bering, she ran the place. People respected her. She was a tough, tough woman, but very insightful. And it just showed me what you can do in the face of adversity. She was a woman in the 1940s with two sons. small children and she was encouraged not to go ahead and run this business but she thought what what else do i have i may as well try to make a go of it and she did and her family followed in her footsteps and they still run the business today no way yeah wow so if you ever want to learn about a remarkable woman

i would suggest you looking up one day macdonald i will definitely do that she held great Christmas parties. Right. Yeah. I think that that's so important and part of the culture is being able to host events and bring people together in those meaningful ways. Can you tell us about those Christmas parties? What was that experience like? I felt part of the family. When you worked for the BC B.C. B.C. We called her Mrs. Mac. We didn't call her Mrs. McDonald was Mrs. Mack. Her grandchildren and her children that worked for her called her. I forget what they had a little cute little name that they called her. working in that culture, even though I was not part of the family, I really felt part of the

family. And I was treated as such and was invited to their home to have these lovely Christmas parties that one could only dream about. They were just, she really did treat her employees well. People wanted to work for her. People looked up to her. She was respected in the industry. She earned that respect. Yeah. That's amazing. And so then you come back to Chilliwack. What were those next steps like? Because I think that you were involved in working in the, like, as a film set designer. Yes, I decided to go back to school in the early 2000s. I went back to Capilano University and took film studies.

So I left there and worked in film and TV doing set decoration and props. And that was a whole different ball game. It's a creative industry. it's very interesting it's very hard work but again you learn a lot from dipping your toes in

all aspects of life yeah what were some of the movies or productions that you were involved in and what was kind of your approach to doing that type of work well I got to tell you an interesting story I was working when you get a call to work on a they call them a show whether it's a TV show or a movie It's always just called a show.

I was called to work on a show, and when you're starting out, you just take the call. You don't ask questions. They say, do you want to work? Yes, I want to work. I will work. You don't know anything about the show you're going to be working on. You hope it's going to be a long-term thing, but there's nothing concrete. So I got called to work on a show.

I showed up at the production office. I was working on the show, and part of what a set dresser does is move furniture, which is not very, it's not very fun, but it's part of what you need to do. When you're working on a show, this show that was working on was about the 1947 partition in India, and so we were picking up a lot of Indian antique pieces, which was pretty cool, sourcing all these. pieces for the show and then we came back to the production office and on the calendar it said the circus is moving to chiloac and i thought oh that's cool yeah where are they going we're shooting at the royal hotel and i this was way before i worked here yeah and i thought wow that's pretty cool and so i was on the crew that came and we redress the lobby of this hotel and we did room 101 on the second floor we redress that and so this hotel the Royal Hotel became the Royal Hotel

in Lahore Pakistan wow and so when you see the outside scenes of this show or this movie they've used computer generated images for the street scenes but you can see the Royal Hotel Street sign so they still call it the Royal Hotel but the interior redressed it like it would have been in in 1947 India. So there was a huge parrot cage with a bird in it. We switched out all the ceiling fans and put ginormous ceiling fans.

Because when you work in film, everything is big. Because if it's not big, it doesn't translate on film. So they always say you have to go OTT, which is over the top. So it just looks rich and full in the show. And so the lobby had Indian rugs and big palm tree. Yeah, it looked pretty cool. Yeah. And then years later, I'm working here.

And you've gotten to see more of that, correct? You've gotten to see more? Oh, this hotel is very often used for TV shows and movies and lately Christmas movies. That's very interesting. And so what, did you ever get to have different roles as a set designer? Like, did you ever get to bring your kind of perspective to that role? You have somewhat of a limited amount of bringing your perspective. The key thing is understanding the script and understanding the production designer's ideas.

So it's more of interpreting what the production designer, who is the head of all the design and the whole show, interpreting what is in his mind. So it's more of working with other people. to totally interpret what the look that they're after.

Right. What was your favorite production or show that you were a part of? I actually worked for a TV reality show. Yeah. I got called from Toronto. They were on location

in British Columbia and they needed a props person to go and travel around for a reality TV show again you don't ask a lot of questions they just want to know if you're able to do it if you have the experience and if you're free on these certain days so it turned out the tv show was called the adrenaline project yeah and it was a kids reality tv show and this was the finale so they

flew these kids from ontario the ones that had qualified to be in the finale yeah and we went mountain biking on Mount Washington, and they had to do, like, activities during the race. They had to race down the mountain bike, and they had keys, and they had to open a box and get another key. They had little tasks to do. We went bungee jumping in Nanaimo. I shouldn't say we, but the kids went bungee jumping in Nanaimo. They didn't know what their activities were.

We went down these big hamster balls in Whistler. inside these. So I was responsible for all the props. So for example, when they were bungee jumping, it's not just bungee jumping. They had to bungee jump and they had to pick up pool noodles from the water and pick them up. So I had to find all the pool noodles in Nimo and make these big rings because again, I know we need a favor. It has to really translate well on a film. So there I am hanging over a bridge, you know, working all these technical elements, which I, you know, it was a lot of, it was fun. It was fun to see the kids having so much fun doing these challenges and, you know, the day-to-day activities of running down the mountain on their mountain bikes. We traveled all over.

Wow, that is so interesting. And then you also went to the University of Victoria. Yeah, I've been taking courses. through the cultural resource management program. Can you tell us about that? Sure. Well, again, it's because of my interest in history and heritage. I got to know through the National Foundation a gentleman named Chris Weeb. And when we were working on the Paramount, he was very helpful with information.

And then I learned that he was actually teaching a class at the University of Victoria. And I thought, oh, what does he teach? Oh, he teach heritage, one of the heritage classes. So I got myself admitted to the University of Victoria, which took a little bit of work, being a mature student. But I got admitted. And I started taking classes, and his class was the first class I took through the Heritage Resource Management Program.

And I've taken probably three or four classes. I don't really have a desire to complete the program. I just did it more for my own interest. Can you tell us about some of those courses? Because I think that you set such a strong example in your passion for the history. And I think that young people like myself, we struggle to recognize the value of history

and that it is connecting us to our roots and to our lineage and to our culture. And so it's great to have people like yourself who are willing to take those courses and work at the Royal Hotel and put all these pieces together for the community. I just find it so interesting to learn from our past. If we don't learn from our past, how do we know who we were? How do we know what we want to become?

You know, we learn about our differences. We learn about our similarities too. So tell us about these courses that you took, and what did you gain from them? First of all, I learned how to study a game, so that's a bit challenging. I learned how to do a lot of reading. And when you do a lot of reading,

you find out that there's a lot of stories in our community that don't get told. There's a lot of stories that get missed. And part of our history, again, it's not just about the age of a building or the architectural features of a building, which are cool, but it's more about the people and the stories

and what do we learn from our past. many mistakes were made in our past we all know that but yeah you cannot erase the past you can only learn by these mistakes it builds community by knowing the stories by knowing the people that lived here before yeah by knowing what sacrifices they made and how they came here and and how they dealt with you know day-to-day life it was not like now day-to-day life was a struggle So do they have you, like, read history books, or are you interacting with stories? Are they telling you about different narrative structures? Like, how do they approach teaching you how to look at culture and heritage?

Interesting question. If I look at the first class I took, it was more about learning about what is important historically in your community. and why. Right. So you may think that's one particular building is important, but does the community actually feel the same way? So how do you gauge the community's interest? How do you find out what the community feels about these buildings?

And how do you answer that type of question? Community engagement. You never assume anything. You talk to people. What buildings you do? What stories do you find interesting in Chilliwack? Or what part of Chilliwack's history do you find interesting? You might find it's a person talking about their ancestors here,

or they might be talking about just coming two years ago here and what they've learned in the short time they've been here. Yeah. And so through these courses, was it focused on you interacting with the community of Chilliwack? Like them saying... One of the courses was specifically about how to build community engagement. Right. And I learned a lot. It sounds very, you know, wishy-washy. What's community engagement? But I really did learn about how to reach out to the community and how do, how can your

community group work with others? We're not working in a silo. And the best way to get things done is to reach out and find out what other people are doing. How can we work together? What is your community group doing. Tell me about, you know, how can we be involved in what you're doing? Right. So not reaching out and asking people to join you, but reaching out and say, how could I be involved in what you're doing? Because I'm really interested. I know nothing about what you're doing. Yeah. How can we work together? Can I learn about your group? Yeah. So this ties really nicely in with Saving the Paramount, and it sounds like you met the person who caused you to go to this program through saving the Paramount. Correct. Can you tell us about your journey? The Paramount. The

Paramount was a theater here in Chilawak. Can you tell us a little bit about the history and what motivated you to get involved? Well, basically, it was a concrete building. Yeah, it was a movie theater. It was built in 1949, but it was a concrete building. Many years it sat empty, and I'm thinking, why is this building empty, just out of a personal interest? And then And there was rumors around 19, or pardon me, 2012, I'm going to say. There was rumors milling about that the city was opting to demolish it. And I'm thinking, why would they demolish that building? It doesn't look like it's in bad shape.

So I just became more involved and I became curious to start with. Let's find out about this building. How do I find out more about the building? But you weren't connected to the Royal Hotel. Absolutely not. No, this is before. Right. This is before all that.

I just was interested in the building, and then I heard there was a rumor that city council might put demolition on the city of Chilliwax agenda. And I thought, hmm, I wonder how the community feels about that. I went to a coffee shop. We went to decades. There was a bunch of people. I don't know if you were there at that first meeting. But you know what?

There was a lot. I'm thinking, wow, this isn't just middle-aged people that care. there's some teenagers here, there's high school students, there's, wow, these high school students, they're concerned about this as well. So I thought, hmm, I think this is something bigger than I anticipated. I think there's other stories, people have other stories, even though they're 15 years old.

They're interested, they have concerns, they see what's going on. How can we mobilize? So we did, we mobilized. We got together and we decided, look, we're not about protesting because this isn't about protesting. We're going to call ourselves the working group. What work can we do?

First of all, let's do some research and find out more about the building. Let's do some research to find out, is this indeed just a rumor about the city possibly opting for demolition? Or what will we find out? So let's put our feelers out, which is what we did. Let's just get some information before we do anything. So the information came back, yes, actually it's going to be on the city council's agenda on Tuesday. They're going to discuss it.

So we move pretty darn quickly. And the long and the short of it is, is the city gave the working group 90 days to come up with a plan, which was just amazing or just so delighted that, okay, they're not. They're seeing something more here. They're giving the community an opportunity to speak, which is what city council in my mind should be doing. So the working group came together, and they spent 90 days, and it wasn't just a group of, it was a wonderful group. We had an architect on board. We had someone that was extremely involved in running nonprofits.

We had other number of people that were quite experienced in putting together this plan. We put together a plan. It didn't fly. The building got demolished against both city council's own staff recommendations and the huge amount of community support blew me away. And I think others were quite surprise

of the amount of support that the community stood behind in the desire to keep the sims, center point of our downtown. It held the downtown together in my mind. That sign was a beacon in our downtown. So not only was in a movie theater, yes, it was a concrete building, but again, the stories that the people had of going there, growing up in Chilliwack, working at the movie theater, walking by the movie theater, the movie theater is being such an integral part of our downtown. What do you mean you're going to take it away?

Yeah. How can that be? What was that like to be involved in such a community-oriented civic kind of group? It was empowering. Yeah. It was nothing that I would have ever thought would happen. I just thought it was going to be a handful of people that, you know, we're talking about trying to save an old theater, but no, no, no, no. It actually, it blew my mind.

mind what the amount of support and again the diversity of the groups from you know high school students like you to middle-aged people to seniors a real diverse amount of people were interested and concerned about losing that part of our downtown yeah and I think the the thought is if a city council can do that with all this support, what else are they going to do, even though the community may support something else? So it really got people thinking, like, how can this happen? When the community is backing this, the community wants to see this happen. The community has spoken. So it really tugged it a lot of people's hearts, actually. It became very much of a passionate thing.

for a lot of people. Absolutely. Do you have any stories to share of your experience with the Paramount Theater? Well, because I haven't lived here very long. I had gone to the Paramount a couple of times, but I didn't have the same connection

that people growing up here did, so I did not have that. I mean, I valued the building for what it was and the fact that it was this great movie theater in the downtown, but I didn't have the same connections that other people. Yeah.

Do you have any stories? You mentioned that people had all of these experiences. Do you have any of those stories to share? Oh, there's stories of people working there as ushers and the uniforms they had. There was a room in the Paramount. Do you remember that? There was a room in there on the second floor where they would come and put their uniform on. So this was a big deal.

They had like a cloak room where they would take off their... regular clothes and put on their proper usher outfits with their little caps on. So there was still people around that remember being an usher at the Paramount Theater. Right. And I guess that what is your thoughts on losing a building like that in terms of like when I think of the Royal Hotel and people coming through and sharing their stories and being able to recount, oh yeah, I remember this or that. And if you don't have that building, you're not going to walk into the building next door

and share those same type of stories. Exactly. Yeah. So when something is gone, it's gone forever. All that remains are stories. If you don't have that touch point to go there and to share those stories, where do those stories get told? They dissipate.

They end up, you know, not being told anymore. So when that place is gone, yes, it's just a building, but it's more than a building. They really just, just. The visual look of the downtown changed dramatically when the theater was demolished. There was a hole in the downtown. That sign was gone. The beacon in our downtown was gone. Yeah.

Yeah, I still remember Tuny Tuesdays growing up and being able to, they still had that. Like, when you watch a movie, you kind of see that. You get your ticket through the little window sign and stuff. And theaters just don't like that anymore. And so you would say that nostalgia for you. Yes. Yeah. And I was experiencing that even then because on my walk to school each day, I would go past

the Paramount and I would see that. And you'd see that little window where you get your ticket. And the movie signs, like I still remember seeing movies like Twilight in that theater. And that movie doesn't seem that far gone in terms of memories and the movie still having relevance today. So being able to see that and recognize the old seats, kind of the setup of being able to have different spots where you're kind of segmented off from other people, those type of unique things. Like, theaters just aren't made that way, where you get your own two little seats beside each other and you're in like a booth by yourself. They don't make them like that.

They have different things where your seat now jiggles and shakes when the movie's on. But that's just not the same experience as feeling like you're a big deal in these two seats. being able to see your show so comfortably. Everything being so affordable during that time, like growing up, there wasn't a lot to do in the downtown for me personally. There was some community events. So the theater was a big part of your entertainment. Exactly.

And so being able to grow up with that and seeing like all of the Disney movies when they first came out, the Finding Nemos and those types of connections. and growing up with that and just seeing that as normal and taking it for granted as a kid that my mom was able to do this for me when so many things like Coltis Lake Waterpark well we don't have a car

yet we can't get there Bridal Falls too far away we don't have a car but you could walk to the movie theater exactly skateboard to the movie theater go see it with just a friend and not have to get permission from my mom it was like because she felt safe that you could go there

exactly right in the middle of the city it's safe Yeah, yeah, exactly. Other children did that too. It was part of growing up. Exactly. Having experience of being adult and adult enough to go to the movie theater with your friend. Yeah, and so having those experiences and recognizing that that was a growing point for me and for Jacob, really, we saw it in the newspaper and was like, we need to take some sort of action.

And we were sitting at, this was the frustrating thing, I guess, for him and I was that we would go to school and be told that we're not that small. We were put during that kind of period of our life, we were put in the dumb class of like, you guys are not academically successful. You need to be put in a room together and you need to, we need to really focus. So there was only 13 kids in our grade eight class because we were considered the underachievers. Yeah. And so our, we didn't get a lot of respect from our teachers. There wasn't that confidence that we were going to graduate.

That was told to my mom from elementary school all the way until high school that I was unlikely to graduate. So someone was deciding that you were probably not going to graduate. Exactly, but to go to the subway by Chilocks Senior Secondary, to sit there with the subway employees, to read the newspaper, and for him and I to have discussions of NDP, liberals, mayor and council, who should people vote for at ages like 13, 14, 15, 16, we knew we weren't these things that we were being described as. And you knew you didn't fit that. Exactly. But nobody else saw that. And our ability to read the newspaper and grapple with music. But the fact that you're just reading the newspaper. Exactly. And having that engagement and knowing that him and I were having like honest discussions of what does this look like, we remember going there. Like, why do we, why are we moving in this direction? What can we do as individuals? That was our first experience with civic engagement and saying, well, we'll start a Facebook page.

And your voice did make a difference. Exactly. We made it on CBC radio. Yeah, absolutely. I totally. remember that. I totally remember you being on CBC. And every voice makes a difference. And it just goes to show that because you were 15 or 14 or whatever young you were, that yes, you have a voice, you have an opinion, you have a right to civic engagement. And I think that goes, it's huge to show other young people that, yes, you have a voice. You have a voice to speak your opinion. Yeah. to share your opinion, to take a chance with your opinion. It may not be the right opinion, but speak out, feel confident enough to voice your opinion. You'll learn as you grow up that maybe I was wrong in this aspect,

but at least I had the ability and the confidence to say what I thought. Yeah, I think so many people miss out on that. And that to happen at such an early age, I think sent Jacob and I on such a different path than our peers because we now said we do have a voice and we can... People are listening to you. Exactly. And all it takes is putting yourself out there

and taking these steps. And so throughout my, from basically that experience onward, I've been way less hesitant on my ability to speak up on any issue and believe that I have something to provide the community, to believe

I could go to law school, to believe that I could start a podcast and that I had a unique perspective that could be a value to other people because going through those experiences has shown me who the role models were the Leonard Wienes who gave me those opportunities to say, hey, I'm going to trust you with this when at other jobs you've been at. They don't trust you. They're on your back. Exactly. And so to know that it depends on the people you're in the room with and it's not me. And so often you can lose a job and think, I'm a loser. I'm an idiot. I'm not good enough. And I'm not.

or you can be surrounded by family members who say you're, all of these things, you're not enough and you're, nobody's going to care about your thoughts. Or you can have teachers who do these things, but it matters who you surround yourself with. Absolutely. And so that's what brought this podcast about for me was this belief that there are role models out there. There are people you can go and learn from, connect with, and hearing their story of the people who told them they were idiots for what they did can such a strong example because if they push back and say, I can move forward. despite this or I can find my niche of passion and share that with people and that can make a difference in and of itself is such an important message that I just don't see being shared enough. I really like your thoughts on being not afraid.

Being not afraid no matter what people tell you if you have an idea yeah you might fail. You might fail five times. How many successful entrepreneurs have our success of the first time, I bet you if you ask most of them, they're going to say, no, no, I had 20 things that I tried that were just garbage. But I was not afraid to give it a go anyways and say, look, I resigned myself, this isn't the work next? I started a business in the 1990s, and when I came up with my business idea, people were looking at me like, what? I came up with an idea before eating local was such a, you know, a common thing now. So in the 1990s, too, there was no internet to do research.

I thought there's a lot of made-in-BC products that aren't really being promoted, that aren't really being talked about. And I know there's probably little producers all over the province making honey or what have you. So I got a book from the department. of agriculture in B.C. and I started writing letters. What do you make? Do you, oh, you make jam. You're in skukumchukes. That's cool. Skookumchukes jam. Yeah. So I found all these different little, cool little places. Chocolate's made in Nelson. Really? Like, who would have thought? Yeah. And I started a business. I called it Bight of the West. And I made made in B.C.

gift baskets. That's awesome. Of just B.C. products. And I thought, okay, I've got an idea now. I'm going to go, I was not afraid. I went downtown to big hotels. I didn't really know what I was doing. I had an idea. I had some products. But I'm like, now I need customers. But you get a lot of nose before you, someone says,

oh, sure, come and see me on Tuesday. And you're like, wow, I've tried five times to see this person because I know this is the person I need to see. And finally she said, yes, come on down. So I ended up getting clients like the old hotel, Georgia. I had several clots. Yes, I worked in my basement. People didn't know how small my operation was.

It didn't matter. I was confident in what I was doing, and I made it work because I believed in what I was doing. It wasn't easy. You got a knock on 15 doors before somebody says, just to see me. It doesn't mean you're going to get anywhere, but yeah, I'll give you five minutes.

Yeah. That is amazing. and I think that there's echoes of starting the podcast and people not realizing the work that goes on behind the scenes of trying to set up guests, schedule questions, make sure that they feel comfortable. Well, the whole process of putting your plan in place before your plan can happen.

Yeah. It just, yeah, people do not realize that. But again, it may have failed, but you tried. This is obviously successful, but how many other ideas do you have? You know, you might not, you might have great ideas. Some of them might not be so fantastic. But if you don't give a go, like, how do you know?

Exactly. And the gift is in and of itself in some circumstances. Like your blog posts, hopefully they will be preserved long term and that will have access to that type of information and the knowledge that you've gathered and be able to access that and go back to that. And you've helped curate this information for people in such meaningful ways.

I'm interested to also know how Heritage Chilliwack came about. Well, Heritage Chiluac came about because of the experience that we learned from the Paramount. We learned that Chiluac civically did not have a voice for heritage matters. When you consider the age of Chiluac, the number of intact heritage homes and buildings that are here, which is one of the reasons that drew me back,

the quaintness, the fact that there was still a lot of Chilliwax heritage around, and there was no voice. The voice was silent. So a number of us that had worked on the Paramount Project said, what can we do to make this not just be about one building, but to be about Chilliwax heritage in general? How can we engage the community? How can we, we don't want to be a protest or,

We want to be more of an enlightenment. How can we do this? I had no clue. So what we did is we got together a couple of us and we contacted Heritage BC. And we said we would like to start a Heritage Society. We really don't know how can you help us. And so they graciously came to, we sat in this room.

We had a discussion. And they said, here's the first steps you do. Here's how you get, you have to get incorporated, get your name out there. you need membership. I mean, there was a lot of steps involved. And we thought, well, what have we got to lose? Nothing, really. It's not going to cost us anything except for our time and energy. We already know that the community has shown this huge amount of support for losing this building downtown. So I think there is some interest out there. So what have we got to lose? Really, nothing except our time. Right. So that's what we did. We started small and We started, then we started writing press releases. That's another thing I learned when I had my business. If you want to get really good promotion of your product, you don't pay for an ad.

You write an article. And if it has an angle, you'll get some press. So we wrote some press articles about what we were doing for our heritage group. I had written some for the Paramount, too. And I think that helped. So just getting the word out there, you have control over what goes on in your community, and I think people don't realize that. You can be that voice.

If you have an idea, don't be afraid to speak out. You'll find out if the community supports it or not. Right. And so who's involved in Heritage Chilwaukee? Who's on the board, and what do they bring to the table? We have five board members that come from a diverse back. background. They all have different roles and responsibility. We have a president, we have a secretary, we have two kind of floating board positions, and we have our treasurer. So they all play important

roles. They are elected positions. We're always looking for new members. Unfortunately, when you are part of a heritage society, what I see is a bit of a stigma. So people, People think we're just a bunch of old people that get together and talk about old buildings. And that's just kind of a hurdle that's really hard to get over. I really would find a way and maybe we can have a discussion at some point. You and me about engaging younger people in our society and in history in general. We have a few younger people, but the demographics of our group, we're losing members. They're dying.

dying with them, they're taking the history and the stories and the information that they held so dearly to them, they're gone now. And two of the ones that come, three actually, that come top of mind are Esther Harder, and she was in Yarrow, quite, I would say, if anyone was the Yarrow historian, it would have been Esther. She recently passed. Margaret Ballam was knew everything about Fairfield Island. She's passed. John Sovereign knew so much about St. Thomas Anglican Church. We were thankful that we documented a lot of it,

but these people have passed on. When these people pass on, yes, a lot of it is written down and captured and recorded for a future, but a lot of it's, they're gone when the people pass. So I would really like to find a way of engaging younger people and becoming more involved in our history and how they see Chilliwax history. Because they're probably seeing it through a different lens, but still a very valuable lens and very worthwhile and very important to have as part of the lens. Yeah, this leads into a topic I've spoken about a few times, which is that I think that we, misunderstand the value that our elders and that our seniors bring to our community and the

knowledge. And I think that often when you say that to a young person, you see the eye roll and yeah, sure, whatever. But the photos in even this building here of better before there was four lanes and lights and when there were horses still on it, these stories and this view of the world and how things used to be, connect us with how things started and how things grow over time. And I think that I really worry personally about people's understanding of World War II, World War I, our fight with communist Russia, Maoist China, because it sincerely doesn't feel like people, they can say things like, well, Hitler was a bad guy. And it's like, that's not in depth enough to understand the disagreement about the systems of capital

socialism versus communism and what the actual disagreement was about. Yes, it's more than just that, yeah. Exactly. And so most people, to me, don't understand that or don't have a healthy respect for what soldiers were fighting for. And to me, most people wouldn't understand the draft today or even be able to comprehend in their mind what that kind of experience would be to see your name on a list and to say, I'm going to war. that's I'm leaving my fiance like we don't understand that we can watch it in a movie but it's so hard for us to picture that in 2021

that these are all the stories that are so important. The people that wanted to fight in the war that lied about their age to fight I mean again that's such a sacrifice because they really believe they were helping their country and they gave their lives away

and people don't realize like these were young people that went and fought that gave their lives away for freedom, for our freedom that we take for granted. Absolutely, and my role as the host of this podcast, like the reason I think it's so important to have someone like yourself on is because, to me, I recognize that there are role models today that set great examples, and they're here, and I can interview them,

but there are also people throughout our history that helped build the Royal Hotel, who helped bring about our community, who helped put in the culture that we all take for granted today. Like when Rebecca and I are walking, we think about, like, who built the sidewalk, who built the sewer lines, who built, who helped say this is the next area, we're going to build a community. Because promontory is there today, but 50 years ago, it really wasn't there at all. It was farmland. And so somebody helped say, this is the next spot. This is the new, new.

We're going to put something here. And, like, imagine all the people who are going to be hustling and bustling through town once we build this spot. And then here it is. And we just view it as normal. And we take it for granted so quickly that we miss out on all these great historic role models who set such a strong example and who have also faced adversity, who have overcome trials and tribulations and who, yes, you can find they've made mistakes, but they've also contributed so much.

Do you have anything to share on that, on your perspective of, history more generally? Well, I think the whole settlement history here is interesting well with the First Nation community that was here. And as a person that's not First Nation, I really would like to know more stories of the people that were here when the settlers came because they didn't live in silos either. They lived together.

They married, they fell in love, they had families together. It was just normal. And now, I don't know, I'd just like to know more of those stories. You know, how these, they came here and they fell in love with people. that are already here. It makes sense. Right? Absolutely. Can you tell us about Heritage Chilliwack and what someone, if they were looking to be a member, what that experience would be like? Oh, sure. You don't have to be a member right away. You could come and experience one

of our meetings whenever we can have an in-person meeting again, which keeps getting sort of changed. But we do, we like to do a lot of community activities. We are quite active with our heritage home tour, which was very, very popular. People are nosy and want to get inside people's beautiful heritage homes, and this is a really good opportunity to do so. Either you can buy a ticket as a participant, or we have lots of volunteer opportunities. So if someone's a little curious about what they do, they can either check out our website. We have a series of videos on YouTube. It's called On the Porch with Heritage Chilawak Society. We were trying to find a new way to reach out during the pandemic. Since we couldn't have our in-person home tours, we couldn't

have our in-person meetings. How do we reach out? Someone came up with a brilliant idea. It was not me. And we came up with On the Porch. So what we do is we interview Heritage Homeowners, on their porch. We come up with a series of questions that, you know, they can pick and choose which questions they want to answer about their experience living in a heritage home or

why they purchased the home or stories about the family that live there. Just, and we call it on the porch. And one of our board members who is a realtor and does her own videos for her business does our videos and they're brilliant. They're brilliant.

Let's give her a shout at that. And Cristina Legault, she does a great job. Awesome. Yeah. So we're really, really delighted that she's a board member and that she does the videos for us. Yeah. So we've done six so far, I believe it's six in the series. Right.

And people love them because in some of the videos, the videographer is, it depends on the homeowner's comfort level, if they're okay with our videographer actually going inside. But if they're not, we can just do it outside too. Right. So there's been a combination of the two. So you can always check out our videos to see what we're up to in that regard. And, yeah. What is the website and what is the YouTube channel? It's heritagechilwaukee.org.

And the YouTube, I think you could just search Heritage Chilliwack Society on YouTube, and you should easily find our On the Porch series. I really appreciate you being willing to take the time and to share a bit of the history of the Royal Hotel Chilliwack, your personal experiences, your experiences with the film industry, and your willingness to share such important aspects of our history with so many people and to do that and to take the time each day to curate this information for others

because I think that that is such an important aspect that I don't think it's recognized enough and the impact it has long term for future generations to be able to go look back at. and learn more about community and culture as it's progressed over time. So thank you so much, Laura, for being willing to take the time. Erin, I wanted to thank you, and I think your podcasts are brilliant, and I really admire where you've come from.

I know your mother. She's sweet and wonderful, and I know you come from a loving and supporting family. And thank you for choosing me to be part of your podcast series. I feel honored, honestly, I do. Well, it has been an amazing experience to get to know you through saving the Paramount, through working here and getting to see your consistent dedication to sharing information and raising awareness so that others can do better as a consequence of learning that history. So I just, I really appreciate you being willing to take the time in this beautiful area

and share such valuable information. Thanks for coming to the Royal today. Awesome. Is that it? Yes. How did that sound, Rebecca? It was really great. I thought it was really, really awesome.

You talked really well. Some of he, the questions were on play. It was engaging the entire time. I think I froze a couple times, but you can edit that out. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, no worries. Yeah, that was really great. Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about great local role models here in BC.

If you support this podcast, I ask that you please consider signing up for Patreon and pledging your support. You'll get access to exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, Q&A's, and so much more. Plus, you'll be helping me continue to grow this podcast. As always, don't forget to connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn at Bigger Than Me Podcast. I'm going to be I'm going to I'm I'm

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