| Jan 31 2008 | ||||||
A New Westminster family’s feathers are ruffled after receiving a city hall order to get rid of their flock of chickens. Bylaw officers told Dan Perry and his family two weeks ago they had to get rid of the six chickens living in a backyard chicken coop. The hens, the officers said, don’t comply with the public health bylaw. The bylaw allows chickens, but only if the property is at least 6,000 square feet, the coop 50 feet from the nearest dwelling, and health and sanitation requirements are met. The Perrys’ Sapperton property is only 5,000 square feet and the coop and home are just 30 feet apart. Perry says the city bylaw, written in 1967, is antiquated and needs to be revised. The chickens, all egg-laying hens, are a constant source of education for the Perrys’ two children, as well as for kids in the neighbourhood, he added. “Living in the city, we’re pretty much separated from our food. This is a great way for kids to learn,” said Perry. Having hens also has environmental spinoffs. Manure from the chickens is used in a compost to produce rich soil for the family’s vegetable garden. And instead of being thrown in the garbage, table scraps become feed for the hens. As well, having a regular supply of organic eggs means a healthier food supply for the Perrys and neighbours, compared to store-bought eggs. At the time the New West bylaw was created, the focus was large properties, mostly in Queensborough. Many of the regulations pertain to health and sanitation conditions of these farms. But New Westminster city staff insist the bylaw regulations are still valid. “Some of the issues with the keeping of chickens are they are an attractor and generator of rat problems,” said Keith Coueffin, the city’s manager of licencing and enforcement. “The other issues with them are smell, flies and noise—particularly roosters when they start crowing early in the morning.” “In my experience, if there were chickens there was a high probability of a rat problem.” Perry disagrees. He says rats are more often attracted to human garbage than they are to a chicken coop. He also says like everything, it depends upon how well someone takes responsibility for their property; Perry cleans the hen house daily. The conflict between urban chickens and city bylaws is not new. Many North American cities have been part of the debate. Last week in Halifax, a woman was ordered to get rid of her three hens because a neighbour complained they were attracting rats. But on Monday, the Maritime city gave the woman a temporary reprieve while its no-chicken bylaw was reviewed. In Seattle, each household can keep three chickens. The city even educates prospective backyard farmers on fowl fundamentals. Michael Levenston with City Farmer in Vancouver says dogs can create more of a mess and noise than chickens do. But he also knows henkeepers have to keep their coops clean—or they’re inviting problems. “From our point of view, in a perfect world we’d love to see people get fresh eggs, be able to have the manure and be able to use the leftovers from the dinner table eaten by something that is productive,” said Levenston, executive director for the urban farming advocacy group. “Some people take the positive view on city chickens,” he said. “Then others say it’s like going back to the dark ages. But today we’d like to have more of the country and the farm in the city. That’s what’s motivating a lot of people.” As for Dan Perry and his family, they’ve been given another six weeks to shut down their coop. Meantime, Perry says he’ll lobby city councillors to take a fresh look at the old bylaw. mmcquillan@burnabynewsleader.com | ||||||
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Playing chicken with the city
Friday, January 25, 2008
Rebirth of a nation
Jan 25 2008
By Michael McQuillan NewsLeader
Rhonda Larrabee was researching at the New Westminster Public Library when she came across a book describing the history of New Westminster.
Published early in the 19th Century, it showed its age—not just the dusty old cover but the words inside.
“Dirty heathen cur dogs” read a passage describing New Westminster’s native population.
Larrabee was furious as she read the words.
She slammed the book down then flung it across the room. A librarian, hearing the outburst, threatened to throw her out of the library.
“I’m not leaving,” Larrabee replied.
Larrabee had been exploring her roots, trying to understand where she came from.
For the first 24 years of her life, she didn’t even know she was First Nations.
But once she found out, it became her quest to put together the past and assemble the pieces for a better future for herself—and for her people.
She was in the library researching the history of New Westminster’s native band, the Qayqayt (KEE-Kite). She discovered few details, because little information is available—it’s almost as if they never existed.
Much of the history, written by British and American newcomers, paid little notice to a people that had lived on the shores of the Fraser thousands of years before non-natives arrived. And when the Qayqayt were mentioned, it was usually derogatory.
The British Columbian newspaper editorialized in 1864 that Indian camps in and around the city “subjected decent people... to the intolerance nuisance of having filthy, degraded, debauched Indians as next door neighbours... compelling them to sleepless nights on account of their drunken orgies.”
In another example, census reports from 1869 and 1870 tallied “whites” and “Chinese” but no Indians—although hundreds lived within the city’s borders.
But if you dig deeper, as Larrabee has, you learn natives helped the first Europeans survive in the wilds of British Columbia. Later, the Qayqayt were decimated by smallpox, forced to live on reserves and eventually had the land they called Skaiametl taken away.
In one particularly dark historical chapter, the city wouldn’t allow Christianized natives dying of smallpox to be buried in the local cemetery. Instead they were laid to rest on Poplar Island, the small, marshy piece of land in the middle of the Fraser River.
For Larrabee, learning these stories was important, but also angered her.
“There is little left of our history. If you go to Irving House and the New Westminster Museum there’s a few arrowheads and a picture of an Indian in a canoe,” she said.
Source of pride
Despite their treatment and decline from approximately 400 to numbers so low they were widely thought to be extinct, the Qayqayt First Nation is now officially recognized. Larrabee, who grew up not knowing she was native, got the band recognized by the federal and provincial governments when she applied for Indian status in 1994.
Governments had thought the band extinct until Larrabee proved, through the research she had gathered, she was Qayqayt.
“The toughest job was getting recognition from all levels of government. For the City of New Westminster to recognize me as the chief in their community was something when they had denied there being any Indians in their city for so long,” she said.
And her work isn’t done.
Larrabee—now the chief of the Qayqayt—has her sights set on righting a historical wrong.
“We want a land base of our own. As a legacy to our children.”
But it’s not just about having a land base for the band as the end goal. It’s the pride that comes with it.
She wants all members of the Qayqayt—which now count 48—to be proud of their heritage, and proud to be native.
Learning the truth
Her mother didn’t feel that pride. Like the three high school grads, she wanted to hide where she came from.
Her mother was Qayqayt and her father Chinese.
But her mother always told Larrabee and her brothers their origin was Chinese and French.
It wasn’t until she was a young woman that her mother finally told the truth.
In one emotional evening, Larrabee’s mother explained how she was brought up in a Kamloops residential school after her parents died. She witnessed native students beaten by teachers for speaking their native tongue and was taught that native culture was inferior.
So when the Larrabee’s mother started a new life in Vancouver, married and had children, she lied about her heritage—not wanting to revisit a sad chapter in her life.
“My mom was so ashamed, she was so embarrassed that she would never say that she was a native woman because of the treatment she received,” said Larrabee.
“But we finally knew who we were,” she said of herself and her three brothers.
After the shock of finding out who they were, Larrabee and her brothers started uncovering more about their heritage—through interviews and historical research.
One of the best sources of information was other bands.
That’s because many of them, like the Kwantlen, Kwikwetlem, Katzie and Musqueam, had seasonal villages beside the Qayqayt so they could catch salmon during the once-great Fraser River spawning runs (Today some of these bands also have land claims for parts of New Westminster).
The early days when all the bands were neighbours on the banks of the Fraser are not so different from today.
Now, there are about 1,500 First Nations people living in New Westminster and they come from bands like the Squamish, Burrard, Stó:lō and others.
Some may be Qayqayt, but no one knows—that heritage has mostly disappeared.
That’s why the Qayqayt will welcome other First Nations people if they ever succeed in their future land claim.
After all, they shared that land before the Europeans arrived—back “when the salmon were so plentiful you could walk on their backs across the river.”
“That is the Qayqayt mandate to all other urban Indians living in New Westminster,” said Larrabee. “No matter what band they have come from.”
“They also need a place to belong to. This is for them as well.”
mmcquillan@burnabynewsleader.com
 | |||
|
Rhonda Larrabee was researching at the New Westminster Public Library when she came across a book describing the history of New Westminster.
Published early in the 19th Century, it showed its age—not just the dusty old cover but the words inside.
“Dirty heathen cur dogs” read a passage describing New Westminster’s native population.
Larrabee was furious as she read the words.
She slammed the book down then flung it across the room. A librarian, hearing the outburst, threatened to throw her out of the library.
“I’m not leaving,” Larrabee replied.
Larrabee had been exploring her roots, trying to understand where she came from.
For the first 24 years of her life, she didn’t even know she was First Nations.
But once she found out, it became her quest to put together the past and assemble the pieces for a better future for herself—and for her people.
She was in the library researching the history of New Westminster’s native band, the Qayqayt (KEE-Kite). She discovered few details, because little information is available—it’s almost as if they never existed.
Much of the history, written by British and American newcomers, paid little notice to a people that had lived on the shores of the Fraser thousands of years before non-natives arrived. And when the Qayqayt were mentioned, it was usually derogatory.
The British Columbian newspaper editorialized in 1864 that Indian camps in and around the city “subjected decent people... to the intolerance nuisance of having filthy, degraded, debauched Indians as next door neighbours... compelling them to sleepless nights on account of their drunken orgies.”
In another example, census reports from 1869 and 1870 tallied “whites” and “Chinese” but no Indians—although hundreds lived within the city’s borders.
But if you dig deeper, as Larrabee has, you learn natives helped the first Europeans survive in the wilds of British Columbia. Later, the Qayqayt were decimated by smallpox, forced to live on reserves and eventually had the land they called Skaiametl taken away.
In one particularly dark historical chapter, the city wouldn’t allow Christianized natives dying of smallpox to be buried in the local cemetery. Instead they were laid to rest on Poplar Island, the small, marshy piece of land in the middle of the Fraser River.
For Larrabee, learning these stories was important, but also angered her.
“There is little left of our history. If you go to Irving House and the New Westminster Museum there’s a few arrowheads and a picture of an Indian in a canoe,” she said.
Source of pride
Despite their treatment and decline from approximately 400 to numbers so low they were widely thought to be extinct, the Qayqayt First Nation is now officially recognized. Larrabee, who grew up not knowing she was native, got the band recognized by the federal and provincial governments when she applied for Indian status in 1994.
Governments had thought the band extinct until Larrabee proved, through the research she had gathered, she was Qayqayt.
“The toughest job was getting recognition from all levels of government. For the City of New Westminster to recognize me as the chief in their community was something when they had denied there being any Indians in their city for so long,” she said.
And her work isn’t done.
Larrabee—now the chief of the Qayqayt—has her sights set on righting a historical wrong.
“We want a land base of our own. As a legacy to our children.”
But it’s not just about having a land base for the band as the end goal. It’s the pride that comes with it.
She wants all members of the Qayqayt—which now count 48—to be proud of their heritage, and proud to be native.
Learning the truth
Her mother didn’t feel that pride. Like the three high school grads, she wanted to hide where she came from.
Her mother was Qayqayt and her father Chinese.
But her mother always told Larrabee and her brothers their origin was Chinese and French.
It wasn’t until she was a young woman that her mother finally told the truth.
In one emotional evening, Larrabee’s mother explained how she was brought up in a Kamloops residential school after her parents died. She witnessed native students beaten by teachers for speaking their native tongue and was taught that native culture was inferior.
So when the Larrabee’s mother started a new life in Vancouver, married and had children, she lied about her heritage—not wanting to revisit a sad chapter in her life.
“My mom was so ashamed, she was so embarrassed that she would never say that she was a native woman because of the treatment she received,” said Larrabee.
“But we finally knew who we were,” she said of herself and her three brothers.
After the shock of finding out who they were, Larrabee and her brothers started uncovering more about their heritage—through interviews and historical research.
One of the best sources of information was other bands.
That’s because many of them, like the Kwantlen, Kwikwetlem, Katzie and Musqueam, had seasonal villages beside the Qayqayt so they could catch salmon during the once-great Fraser River spawning runs (Today some of these bands also have land claims for parts of New Westminster).
The early days when all the bands were neighbours on the banks of the Fraser are not so different from today.
Now, there are about 1,500 First Nations people living in New Westminster and they come from bands like the Squamish, Burrard, Stó:lō and others.
Some may be Qayqayt, but no one knows—that heritage has mostly disappeared.
That’s why the Qayqayt will welcome other First Nations people if they ever succeed in their future land claim.
After all, they shared that land before the Europeans arrived—back “when the salmon were so plentiful you could walk on their backs across the river.”
“That is the Qayqayt mandate to all other urban Indians living in New Westminster,” said Larrabee. “No matter what band they have come from.”
“They also need a place to belong to. This is for them as well.”
mmcquillan@burnabynewsleader.com
Friday, January 11, 2008
Club was safe haven for exotic dancers
| Jan 11 2008 New Westminster NewsLeader | ||||||
Show lounge closure saddens women who worked there It was her favourite club and she would dance at few others. The staff was friendly, the customers supportive and most importantly, she felt safe when performing there. Now that it’s closed, Ryann Rain (her stage name) says she may have performed her last exotic dance routine. “I was in tears the final night, bawling my eyes out on stage—really, really sexy—because for me it was the end of my home and I can’t dance anymore,” she said. “Mugs and Jugs was my bread and butter and paid my rent.” As reported in the NewsLeader on Thursday, the College Place Hotel—home to both Mugs and Jugs and the Chicago Tonight nightclub—has been sold to BC Housing, which plans to convert the building to provide an emergency shelter and transitional housing. The closure of the Mugs and Jugs is part of a trend in the region, and Rain wasn’t alone in her admiration for the exotic show lounge. According to The Naked Truth (www.nakedtruth.ca), a website devoted to Lower Mainland exotic dancers, New Westminster’s Mugs and Jugs was voted the best place to work in an online poll. “They were a great staff to work with. It was like a family,” said Rain, 27. Mugs and Jugs isn’t the only exotic show lounge to recently close its doors. On Thursday it was announced the Cecil Hotel was sold to a developer who plans to tear down the building and put up condominiums. The North Burnaby Inn, the Marble Arch, the Drake and the Fraser Arms are some other clubs closed over the last decade. But the trend of strip clubs closing is about more than these establishments closing their doors, say dancers. Trina Ricketts, a former exotic dancer who founded The Naked Truth, sees it as the loss of safe work options for many women—many who are mothers or support loved ones. “In the sex industry, a strip club is considered a safe-sex work option. It’s safe because you have bouncers, staff and no contact options,” said Ricketts, a South Surrey resident and mother of two. The feminist and advocate for women worked in the sex industry as a stripper for nine years before leaving. She became an exotic dancer for reasons similar to many women—to pay the bills. Ricketts said she worked numerous minimum-wage jobs, often more than one at a time, and still couldn’t pay the rent and put food on her table. With exotic dancing she could finally make a livable wage. But she always had her boundaries—she was comfortable performing naked but that’s where it ended. “For me, exotic dancing saved me. It was about performing, it was about art, it was about power and money,” she said. “But it wasn’t about having strangers touch my body. In that way, I find it really scary that exotic dance clubs are closing.” Both Ricketts and Rain sees changes ahead with clubs closing down. And neither like where things are going. Many of the remaining clubs are pushing things like lap dances or private dances. “With Mugs and Jugs closing, we’re near the end of no-contact options for women making a living in the sex industry,” said Rain. “For women that have to support a family, it means a lot tougher decisions for them.” mmcquillan@newwestnewsleader.com | ||||||
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