Yale and District Historical Society (YDHS) have officially removed their museum collection, as well as buildings that they own, from the Yale Historic Site (YHS).
In a press release, YDHS announced that as of Monday (May 1) the site is now “bereft of the many artifacts and historical information displays owned by YDHS” along with “a number of YDHS-owned buildings.” This excludes the Church of St. John the Divine which remains at the site intact with its items.
“Our members – many of whom have donated important historical artifacts to YDHS over the years – told us they’re concerned for the future of these items,” said Karen Rushlow, the president of YDHS, in the press release. “The Board were guided by the Society’s constitution in making the decision to remove its artifacts.”
The removal comes three weeks after YDHS first announced that Heritage Branch had rejected their application, to re-tender their contract to manager YHS, and instead had given the contract to Forager Foundation without Indigenous consultation (which was confirmed by Spuzzum First Nation Chief James Hobart in a previous press release).
READ MORE: Yale & District Historical Society no longer to manage Yale Historic Site
Forager is a Canadian nonprofit, currently located in Gibsons, dedicated to “preserving and promoting natural and cultural heritage through innovative community-driven projects in Canada and beyond.” While the group has experience working with historic organizations and sites — which includes B.C. Museums Association and partnering with “25 per cent of B.C. heritage sectors” — they do not have experience managing a historic site on their own.
Despite this, in addition to managing YHS, the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture, and Sport (MOTACS) recently announced on Friday morning (May 5) that Forager would be the interim managers of Point Ellice House, in Victoria.
It should also be noted that Forager had no knowledge, when accepting the contract, that 95 per cent of YHS items belonged to YDHS.
YDHS, who’ve managed the site for 40 years, said they had a “good faith agreement” to continue managing YHS after the B.C government bought it for $1 a few years ago. However, at the end of 2022, YDHS was asked to re-tender their contract. A few weeks later, Heritage Branch rejected their application.
According to YDHS, their relationship with Heritage Branch hasn’t been easy, with the province making it difficult for the society to make independent decisions to improve the site. This includes creating numerous delays that prevented YDHS from making use of a $750,000 CERIP grant that they won three years ago. YDHS, who wanted to use the money to increase visibility of the site by building a new entrance closer to Highway 1, said they were forced to return the money when Heritage Branch’s delays prevented them from meeting the grant’s completion deadline.
In response to their application’s rejection, YDHS issued a formal complaint to the Assistant Deputy Minister of MOTACS, Nick Grant. Grant informed YDHS that Heritage Branch’s decision could not be re-evaluated. He also informed YDHS that their only option is to request a “Vender Complaint” (sic.) which, according to YDHS, “merely aims to improve the procurement process in the future.”
After their meeting with Grant, YDHS said they later learned “that a number of important aspects of the application had been given low scores due to some information apparently not being clear to the evaluation panel. Of note, the RFP instructions clearly state that Heritage Branch has the right to ‘to request clarification(s) from a Proponent with respect to its Proposal’.”
“Yale & District Historical Society has clearly demonstrated its ability to manage Yale Historic Site, because we’ve been doing it for over four decades,” Rushlow said. “We were also able to include letters of recommendation in our contract application from Tourism Hope, Yale First Nation, Yale Ratepayers’ Society and Fraser Valley Regional District. Given our track record and all this local support, we can’t understand why Heritage Branch didn’t just pick up the phone to ask us about anything they thought was missing from our proposal, when there is provision for this circumstance within the rules of the RFP process.”
YDHS said that their contact information, which was available in their application, wasn’t used by Heritage Branch to “clarify the details they were lacking.”
In a recent interview with Tyee News, MOTAC said that Forager’s application held more weight.
“The new operator (Forager) brought things to the table that had not been in place previously,” said Lana Popham, the Minister for MOTAC. “An example would be a very strong cultural engagement plan, which includes of course Indigenous stories, but also the Chinese community. That story hadn’t necessarily been told.”
YDHS’s board includes Indigenous members from Spuzzum, Boston Bar First Nation, and Yale First Nation — who are all stakeholders in the site.
Additionally, according to YDHS their, “museum displays and exhibits did, in fact, include the stories of Chinese settlers and there was a room dedicated to Chinese artifacts. YDHS’s application also detailed how it would work to build on the telling of Indigenous stories, and work had already begun on a grant that would enable First Nations and Chinese-Canadian stories to be told in their own languages.”
YDHS said that when they sought to further develop the site’s story of Yale’s Chinese-Canadian community, “Heritage Branch was unwilling to support the project through to completion, leaving a renovated heritage building without a roof.”
Currently, YDHS has an online petition to campaign against losing the contract for YHS. The petition currently has 1641 signatures and can be accessed at https://chng.it/L28SWc8DsX.
READ MORE: YDHS will not sell or rent museum collection to Forager Foundation
@KemoneMoodley
kemone.moodley@hopestandard.com
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