‘Loss to our history’: Lytton Chinese History Museum and 1,600 artifacts destroyed in fire

LYTTON (NEWS 1130) — Nearly 1,600 artifacts have been destroyed in last week’s fire in Lytton, which completely levelled the Lytton Chinese History Museum.

Henry Yu is a professor of history at UBC, and he says many of the precious artifacts were tied to thousands of Chinese miners, railway workers, merchants and farmers.

“Chinese had a long history up and down the Fraser — from the Gold Rush onwards through railroad building and Lytton was one of those key sites of that long, continuous history of Chinese in British Columbia,” he says.

“They also had long histories of engagement and relationships with Indigenous peoples, including the Lytton First Nations, the settlement and migration of Chinese up and down the Fraser and throughout B.C. So it’s a particular site that’s a loss.”

He explains these artifacts and objects have a great historical value since many of the belongings are passed down along with stories to accompany them. He says each has a “connection to the people we knew, who are now gone, or people who we never knew.”

Yu adds that the fire is also a “big blow” to the Chinese community in the area as many restaurants and hotels were run by Chinese families for decades.

“In the past 50 to 60 years, many of the Chinese who are in small towns have moved out … of small towns in B.C. … so the history and the stories of people in those places, often left with the residents. And the Lytton Museum … contained a lot of the records of that longer history — they’re the remnants of those peoples that used to be there and moved out.”

Yu adds, he’s grateful there are digital images and records of the objects “but of course, that’s not the same as the original objects.”

“The history of Chinese and Indigenous peoples were kind of ignored as part of B.C. history, … so wasn’t saved. And so when it was saved, it is an heirloom for us all and to have that lost it really is a tragic blow.”

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