By Roy L Hales
Everyone was talking about the murals, when they were first unveiled. Thirty-seven years later, the image of three proud First Nations faces comes to many people’s minds when they hear the name Chemainus. Municipalities throughout British Columbia embraced this former logging town as a model for how communities can be reinvented after their principal industry collapses. There are still hundreds of thousands of visitors coming to see this Vancouver Island town every year. I recently dropped in to see how how Chemainus Transformed itself.
How Chemainus Transformed Itself
Kelly-Ann Argue, owner of Classic Carriages and a director of the local Chamber of Commerce, says visitors are still responding to the murals with the same enthusiasm they had in the 1990s. Her tour is a 45 minute experience, but many people continue studying the images after it is over.
The mural society has a website for people who want to learn more.
“A lot of shopkeepers are very honoured to have a mural on their building. People would scramble to have the mural society choose their wall to put a mural on. It brought people looking at their businesses, but there is a sense of pride. There is history in the town.
“I’ve seen people walking their dog through town; and a visitor just looking at a wall. The person walking the dog knows the person in the mural, that’s my great great grandfather. That’s our connection to what’s on the wall. It connects generations as well as visitors and locals.”
A Response To The Economic Downturn of 1979-81
They originated as a response to the economic downturn of 1979-81.
”The mill was going to be shut down. So we had to make a decision. What we were going to do with our town. The people of Chemainus decided they did not want to go down without a fight,” said Argue.
A volunteer at the museum, Eric Vikstrom, belonged to the Rotary Club at that time, “We used to have a huge barn, an ugly old barn, sitting up on Mac Blo’s property and someone brought up at the Rotary [Club] meeting that it would be a good idea to paint something on that ugly looking building.”
Most of the credit for what transpired belongs to a local carpenter. Karl Schutz had seen the murals in eastern Europe. He suggested that Chemainus display its history on walls throughout the town.
“Some local residents thought he was a bit of a quack. These loggers would say, ‘Oh, we’ve known logging for generations. There is no way people are going to come and see a bunch of [logging] pictures on the wall.’ But Karl decided to start this and many people in town, including the mayor and council at the time, listened to Karl. They got together and came up with a plan,” said Argue.
A government of British Columbia loan financed the project.
The First Five Murals
The first five murals were unveiled in April 1982. Instead of a ribbon cutting ceremony, Chemainus held a log sawing competition between mayor Graham Bruce and Premier Bill Vander Zalm. There was also a dance, pancake breakfast and a beauty pageant.
Argue read out from Schutz’s account of the event, “A blast of airforce voodoo jets broke the sound barrier over the town, while crowds of people milled through the closed off section of Willow street. Everywhere there were people, people, people.”
“ … And then it spread. Other murals start coming up and then, of course, it started going all over, “ added Vikstrom.
A Few Of The Stories
In the podcast above Argue recites a few of the stories behind the murals.
Chemainus takes its name from a legendary chief (Tsa-meeun-is), who received a horrific chest wound in battle with a rival tribe. His people were so impressed by his unexpected survival that they adopted his name as their own. The first white settlers called their town Horseshoe Bay but, as that name was already taken, it was renamed Chemainus.
One of Argue’s favourite stories is about the Askew family. Thomas Askew owned the town’s second sawmill. His daughter Julia was the first white baby born in the area. The Askews had five children when Thomas died. Ignoring the customs of that time, his widow Isabel continued to operate the mill.
Another of the town’s murals depicts a celebrated mill purchase in 1944. The former owner, John Humbird, had had a falling out with one of his more prominent employees. H.R. MacMillan vowed to return one day and take over the business. When Humbird later sold the mill, it was to an anonymous buyer. Legend has it that MacMillan did not reveal his identity until it was time to sign the papers. Then he told his former employer ‘you’re fired.’”
Charlie Abbot is a celebrated hermit who moved into the forest sometime during the 1970s. He “created a garden beneath the canopy of giant maples and firs, carving paths through the woodland floor.”
Hong Hing moved to Chemainus around 1915. He owned a grocery store, laundry, and was the local bootlegger prior to the legalization of alcohol. When he was in his 80s, Hong talked about returning to his native China. Instead, he married a woman 40 years his junior and fathered an heir. He died two years later.
Visitor’s Stories
Argue says that after the tour, many people stick around to tell her their own stories. She’d hear statements like, “You remember that one mural that was on the tour, well I had a gramma like that.” As might be expected, many of the stories were about horses.
A woman celebrating her 96th birthday with a carriage ride recounted the difficulties she once had with the horse that took her to school. Everyone left their animals in a corral and saddled them up again at the end of the day. Only her horse was stubborn. So she was almost always the last to leave.
Someone else recounted a milkman’s embarrassment after his wife’s horse got lame and they used one of his work horses to go to church. They returned home around the same time that he usually finished work. Only their buggy came to an abrupt halt when the horse reached the local pub. When the animal refused to move, the milkman was forced to confess his regular visits there.
Putting Chemainus On The Map
The hundreds of thousands of people that visit Chemainus every year are now the town’s principal source of revenue.
Karl Schutz, who started the town on its pilgrimage into the past, is still alive.
“He just came back from China a few months ago. They were promoting some murals in China. I even heard him … on CBC,” said Vikstrom.
He added, “Chemainus would not be what it is today if we did not have the murals. They really put Chemainus on the map.”
Top photo credit: One of the original murals from 1982, based on a 1901 photograph courtesy Rick McCharles via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License).
And the picture above the Thrift store is my Great, Great Grandmother, Eliza Smith. She was the first mid-wife in Chemainus before the hospital was built. We (the Williams family) donated a picture of Eliza Smith and it was hung in the board room of the hospital for many, many years. I wish more was told about Eliza Smith.