Learn more of Vancouver’s history from the perspective of some of its most noted individuals, namely Mohawk poet E. Pauline Johnson and Squamish Chief Joseph Capilano through academic, historical, and cultural knowledge.
Presenters Alix Shield, Jolene Cumming, and Tłakwasikan Khelsilem will present new and little-known, well-researched, land-based stories during an afternoon at Historic Joy Kogawa House. With writer-in-residence Janet Rogers.
When: Sunday, May 6, 3:00 to 5:00pm
Where: 1450 West 64th Avenue, Vancouver
RSVP is required as seating is limited. Email info@kogawahouse.com.
Alix Shield is a PhD student and settler scholar in the Department of English at Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, BC). Her research uses contemporary digital humanities methods to analyze collaboratively-authored twentieth- and twenty-first-century Indigenous literatures in Canada, and is primarily focused on E. Pauline Johnson’s and Chief Joe and Mary Capilano’s 1911 text Legends of Vancouver. Alix is also a research assistant for Dr. Deanna Reder’s “The People and the Text” SSHRC-funded project, and the recipient of a SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship for her doctoral work.
Since 2001, Jolene Castillou Cumming has been working to raise awareness about the remarkable women from Vancouver’s past. She researches, presents and produces a wide variety of public women history events and programs around the City and in Stanley Park.
Tłakwasikan Khelsilem, a member of the Squamish Nation, is program director and founder of Kwi Awt Stelmexw, an Indigenous arts and education society to strengthen Sḵwx̱wú7mesh cultural identity through training and mentorship.
For half a decade, Khelsilem has worked tirelessly to revitalize his ancestral language.
I would have really liked to have come to this and only heard about it through Janet Rogers post on Chiefswood Museums’ Facebook page. I’ve been an avid fan of Pauline Johnson for over 40 years and was honoured to perform at Chiefswood back in 2013. I had recorded a CD entitled “Faithfully Yours – the Ballads of E. Pauline Johnson”. It was a project that had been on the ‘back burner’ for 7 years and after I had 2 strokes back to back, the latter being a brain bleed, I felt it necessary to finish and release my project. I sing, play guitar on it and wrote the music to her poems. It was a labour of love.