MY RIDING BUDDY ROLAND AND I taking a break in Stanley Park near the Lion's Gate Bridge.

Western Canadians present the indigenous people of their region as more than afterthoughts. The artifacts of Native Canadians outnumber those of European and Asian citizens in parks and museums. In the U.S. we pretend that Native Americans are not in any way basic to our existence as a nation. When I was a college student in California in the 1950s, teachers and textbooks referred to the indigenous people of the Central Valley as “Digger Indians” because they included roots and acorns in their diet. The term “digger” was intended and understood to be a racial slur. In the first decade of the Twentieth Century, only thirty years before I was born, “hunting parties” regularly went out into the Feather River Canyon area above Oroville to find and kill “Indians.” Of course, it was against the law, but the law was not paying attention.
CANADIANS HAVE NOT ALWAYS BEEN KIND TO THEIR FIRST PEOPLE. Eastern Native Canadians were often forced into poverty and then ignored. Native children were routinely removed from their families and put into special schools far away from home. If they were successful in school, they were allowed to take jobs in cities. If they weren't successful students, they were sent back into the poverty of native villages. There is irony in the name "English Bay" given to the beautiful body of water near where the totem poles are clustered together in Stanley Park.