Milano Coffee in Comox

While on Vancouver Island this autumn we noticed a relatively new coffee shop on Comox Avenue, in Comox of all places.











It's Vancouver's own Milano Coffee and this one opened about a year ago. It's Milano's fifth café, with three others in the home town, and one in Toronto. Of all places.

The Comox café is actually a licensed operation, but it's all in the family as Robin and Vickie Henry of Comox, are related to the Milano owners, Brian and Linda Turko. (Linda established the much-loved Turk's Coffee Bar on Commercial Drive in Vancouver in the latter part of the last century.)



The café in Comox has a simple, Winnipeg-style about it. Casual and spartan. Comfortable environment, but hard chairs. The espresso is simply excellent, and very much in the Milano tradition. Probably too much milk and foam in the macchiato, but these things happen. 










Photos by Jeem. Copyright 2017 by Jim Murray.

St. Michael's Residential School in Alert Bay

After visiting the U'Mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay, a moving tribute to the Kwakwak'wakw people and the Potlatch, we stepped out into the sunlight and viewed a vacant lot adjacent to the
Centre.

This was the site of St. Michael's Indian Residential School, sometimes referred to as the Alert Bay Residential School, and often as "St. Mike's." It was built in 1929 as a regional school for Aboriginal children from North Vancouver Island and the province's north coast, including children from Bella Bella, Bella Coola, the Nisga’a territories and Haida Gwaii.



In fact, these children were forcibly taken from their parents, prohibited from speaking their own languages, kept away from their families for years and inculcated with Anglo-European beliefs. That the school was largely self-sufficient with its own farm, cattle, water and electric plant, was largely due to the free labour pool at its disposal.

"Almighty God for what has been accomplished: for a race of people brought in the shortest period of time known in history from the most debasing savagery to citizenship both in the Kingdom of our God and in his God-blessed Dominion of Canada."

Published in 1934 

by the Indian Residential School Commission 

of the Missionary Society of the Church of English, in thanks and appreciation for  St. Michael's in Alert Bay

Thankfully, St. Michael's closed in 1975. The 'Namgis First Nation was given control of the building and it was used for several purposes. In February of 2015, First Nations, church leaders, former students and politicians attended a healing ceremony hosted by the 'Namgis First Nation to mark the demolition of the building. In May of the same year, 'Namgis had a blessing of the Land ceremony.



There's something strange about standing here, to think about fifty years and more of an "education" system designed to destroy a people. It was such a large building, with classrooms, offices and quarters for 200 students. It was a structure that dominated the town itself, again perhaps part of the design to eliminate an entire culture.

This empty lot isn't empty at all; it's full of stories of pain, fear and anger, that continues to cross generations to this day.

Empty lot photo by Jeem (others: archival photos). 
Copyright 2017 by Jim Murray.

U'mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay

U'mista Cultural Centre is one of the longest-operating and most successful First Nations cultural facilities in BC. It was established in 1980 as a project to house potlatch artifacts which had been stolen by government during an earlier period of cultural repression. Canada banned the potlatch from 1884 to 1951.







The return of the potlatch artifacts not only provided U'mista's name (the return of something important), it initiated a trend toward repatriation of First Nations' cultural artifacts.








U'mista now operates a modern museum and cultural education facility in Alert Bay. Operations include the museum, an art gallery and gift shop, group tours, and various presentations.

The potlatch maintained community solidarity and hierarchical relations within, and between, individual bands and nations. It was always a celebration for the entire community and a sharing of food and goods for a special occasion: a birth, marriage or death. Perhaps subversively in the eyes of the government, the potlatch was also a means of economic redistribution of wealth within the community. The celebratory family was expected to share its good fortune widely and freely.

The last major potlatch in Canada, and it was illegal at the time, was held in 1921 in Alert Bay. All the goods were confiscated by agents of the Indian Department and charges were laid. The artifacts, including ceremonial regalia, coppers, masks and more, were distributed to museums and private collections throughout Canada and the US.

An impressive gift shop

One of the few areas where one can actually touch and feel...

U'mista Cultural Centre has seen considerable success in its efforts to repatriate artifacts that rightly belong to the people, and many of those artifacts are here in Alert Bay. The work continues.

... the children's interpretive room.

Photos by Jeem. Copyright 2017 by Jim Murray.