Forty-seven years since I said goodbye to Quilchena Elementary, a school that was forty-nine years old at the time of my "graduation", having opened its doors in 1926. Very moderne doors, too. You can see evidence of the moderne (Art Deco) style in the concrete stairway that links the school to the Collegiate Gothic style high school below it (Point Grey). Odd that a moderne style should precede a Collegiate Gothic style, but oh well, moving on ...
The birthdate of Quilchena sits proud above the main entrance doors. But because I can never remember whether the date is 1926 or 1928, I went to the school site to see if I could find it. When I clicked on "School History" in the "About Us" section, this came up:
Hardly a surprise. According to a historian I know, of all North American university departments, History has experienced the sharpest decline in enrolment. I reasoned this decline was due to a narcissism attributed to those born after 1980 (If History is what happened before me, I want no part of it). Another reason could be History's problematic past as a maker of narratives that serve the colonial endeavour (Not about us without us). As for Quilchena's "School History" placeholder, I'm sure a history is being rewritten pending the approval of those whose interests it serves and, as the case may be, those it deflects. (Some things never change.)
"What does Quilchena mean?" I asked a teacher back in Grade Three after I was asked to submit a short piece to the school newspaper on our annual gymnastics show, and was told it is a Salishan word that means "fast running water," a fact that appeared below the name of our school paper when it was rolled out of the office Gestetner a week later. Yet everywhere I look these days, Quilchena means something different. The VSB site I linked to says it means "many waters." I have also seen a definition that reads "flat land near water." Language, like history, is fluid.
Here's those stairs as I first knew them:
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