Wednesday December 7, 2005

This past Wednesday it was our pleasure to have our own Larry Grant as the guest speaker. Larry spoke about the several Chinese market gardens that were located on the Musqueam reserve from 1905 to the late 1950's. Larry's talk was very interesting and provided a lot of information that was unknown to some of the members. He stated that these market gardens were an integral part of Musqueam history. As Larry spoke about the market gardens, a few of the members spoke up and shared their memoriesof the farms and the people who lived and worked there. Larry explained that the Chinese farmers provided produce for many of the Chinese markets in Vancouver and Chinatown in particular. The farmers, single men, came from China and leased the land to farm, because of the Chinese head tax the men were unable to bring their families with them. Sometimes they were unable to pay their leases because they were mainly subsistence farmers. The farmers also employed many members of the Musqueam reserve. Larry related his experiences of working on a farm and also providing firewood to the farmers. Members of the community also traded with the farmers which enabled both sides to have acess to foods that they would not normally eat. Larry explained that the farms began to move away or were gradually phased out with the establishment of the Safeway chains. The Chinese farmers were forced to sell all their produce to Safeway, disconnecting them form the storeowners they had dealt with for many years previous. Also, due to construction of the golf courses, leases on the land changed from yearly to month-to-month making it almost impossible for farmers to plan their harvest; this caused many of the farmers to move away.