Covered Roots: The History of Vancouver's Chinese Farms

the smaller truck farm you know the market 30 truck farm was primarily primarily Chinese and they said they were the they were the large majority and suppliers that said you know the safe ways and super value so all the indices and fresh veggies at that time they're all supplied local is all pretty much done by Chinese Chinese market version my dad after he was a he was in the Canadian Army and as a result of that he was able to secure veterans land grant and with that he purchased a five acre farm down in South Burnham II on burn Road and I think at that time that may have been the first farm down there so I'm like third or fourth generation my my grandfather came over came came to Canada and in the late 1880s Brno 1870 this is our great-grandfather and he came over to Canada in the 1880s and he started off in California for the gold rush and he moved up to BC fallen to gold rush up to Canada when they had their little spurt up here and he end up supplying the towns as a pack mule train owner so he was I see a supplier our dad during the war he got drafted and this had a special Chinese for stop trained in the Saskatchewan I was trained in England and they're supposed to be parachuted behind Japanese lines so he was part of that group and after he came back from the war he was offered to go farming with another friend of his in Burnaby and he wanted to go on his own so he ended up in clover down arrow he started off on the other side of Hill on 176 small farm there and then through his Veterans Administration loan he bought this place in Cloverdale and it started off with 112 acres was only 15 of it was cleared so together was his two brothers they slowly cleared it through the winter I can carry that it's in 1952 that time I was 16 you and I come before a mother my father had full partner on the menu from 11 years old my grandpa brought me out from China into Kanna but I was going to school in Calabria I would come up to my uncle place in Richmond to work in the summer and and every summer to make make make some money right so that's how I learned to find it was a lot of work you know dawn to dusk a lot of times you worked I remember when when we had an order that was that was pressing sometimes you know yeah yeah you're out there with I remember my mom out there with a kerosene lamp hung on a pole harvesting stuff for the next day you know so it was you know hard you know hard life but as a reasonable living typically on the farm we had about a half a day off on a Sunday Sunday afternoons were were where our only spare time we had otherwise you you're working like I said almost done that does six and a half days a week during during season every every day there was something you know that you had to do it was either weeding or you know helping out moving irrigation hose sections or you're you know we're loading you know helping harvesting packing deliveries so it was a pretty packed day whatever you made you always invest in the front and then you know like I always say you you you make one dollar you invest $2 right so actually this old saying is you you you are poor farmer but you die rich that's how it goes before I lived here moved here I had to I had a little Hut there was no wife that we first moved in here we lived in there there I remember picking carrots was so cold November it's so cold that I would have to get you know Campbell's soup the can of soup and put boiling water summertime sometimes we have orders this hole that holds our order like 50 dozen carrots or something you pick carrots and then 43 M my god I work hard but my mom worked hard she used to work carrying a dirt when I was little leave me come home because my mother always said even we could give all the measures to away but would never let her have to return to the dirt was harvesting to Minkus you want to get her down dirty so dad has got the chicken farm and get chicken manure and everything that was the only kind of I guess work or you know livelihood that I guess you could get into without a whole lot of you know education because I think most of the Chinese farmers there were you know you know didn't have didn't have much of an education and that was the kind of livelihood that you could get into without too much me if you're willing to work hard you can you know you could make a coda you know a reasonable living at it so I think that was the kind of commitment that maybe the Chinese farmers were willing to make in those days there wasn't Tom that a lot of things available because the language skills and everything people that came over from mainland China and stuff like that there wasn't a lot of things available unless you have like I'm sure you hear laundry the restaurant grocery stores so the farm was next thing no you know like there was only in line and stuff like that at the time he he had up to great an education he never finished high school and so I I think the the opportunities were and being ethnic Chinese you know at that time opportunities just weren't there you know so I think farming it was the AV figured if he was able to get a chuckle and he got a good farmer I tried and have 67 people like epically Schiavone I want to extend the middle by noritake is it oh no more fun number four now it's all gone so purchased oh so bad you know and they got behind me this goes you see okay let's all get fun that's why I have to go back fun again Kelly Douglas I think all of them are Chinese well I would say you know ninety ninety-five percent of them are we're Chinese very very few them were Caucasian Chinese that was kind of we used to have the bunk house and we had people there during the summer probably above 1 12 13 usually the Chinese ladies and some Chinese men too because they they were up to the lifting and moving pipes and stuff like that reading and then back then we didn't have the harvester for carrots and stuff like that there was a lot of labor so we were higher though labor contractors and back then it was all Chinese we always felt a little embarrassed that my dad was a farmer you know but when when I grew up it was one for it was much more important to be not noticed work hard you know go to school do well and try to fit in kind of thing and and and kind of downplay your ethnicity we have the pump stations in the back we used to get a lot of floods it would rain heavy during the winter and then the water would slowly come up and we could see it coming up we'd have to raise everything up and basically you can see the bulgur that's basically how you get around with a rowboat that's how much water was in there we get cold winters back then and it would turn to ice and we'd get hundreds of people coming to our place to go skating that's how we learned how to skate actually yeah it was pretty near almost every winter we'd be skating so you know that's one of our memories of the farm too was skating my dad had like had a huge bike was really to fight when I was little and I learned by ride and myself Noah had time teach me I just fought for gold salt I had to work all summer member $36 think bicycle I didn't have much of a social life because right after school you had to go home do your homework and then go help out you know help out and in the in the fields you knew that you know if you didn't help he he would spend that extra whatever time I was doing he'd have to pick it you know that's what he'd have to do and you know he worked he would have to work family would have to work ten months later into the evening this is in the spring I had to go and follow him started in the greenhouses and I had to go up hold the world needs about between all the little seedlings that was my job when your farm you you don't just farm you we're a plumber or your neck trician everything yeah and there's a lot more gambling to because you're not you're always fighting the weather you're fighting insects diseases you have to know a little a little bit of everything I think when you young I think still farm block not that bad I mean not that bad but it's hard work down what you have done the only thing oh the veterans are grown from seeds is nothing right you know just it's just thrown on upon the ground and you just pick up and then you just bring it to a store if it's not true right you know the wholesalers purchased product from wherever they can get you know and get the best value and and I think because the the local local farming industry is not as as strong as it was it's hard to and in and it can't you know I think I think the problem is that it no longer sustains the the complete needs of the Lower Mainland any of all the stores of the supermarkets in the Lower Mainland area before India we had 13 farm at No 1 I'm not at all but in each other's take a hold father or did you turn nothing down only by this part in the brainy be at one time Richmond was almost you know all for me a lot of the big seconds of Surrey were huge farms same with I was told my dad in Vancouver or there were there were farms all along the freezer all the way out to Musqueam the Indian reserve there was farm Chinese farmers that that farmed out there 19:06 is the first record of the farmers being here on my Indian reserve unbeknownst to the Indian Department so I'm not sure if it was a year or two prior to that or longer that the Chinese farmers were actually renting land directly from the musky band members but in 1906 the records show that the Department of Indian Affairs Indian agent became aware that there were Chinese people on the reserve and they were trying to figure out how these guys his Chinese guys got here from this corner the roadway went up into that area behind you and that's where our dad's the family farm was in this area and that's Dylan on you and it was right here Jynx farm was here and further down the the the land is divided into two areas one was part of Hong Kong far Hong Kong Yuen and the other part was made on you and this used to be circuitry something smaller yeah yeah and my very very first summer job was when I was 11 years old and it's roughly in this area on 51st that I got a summer job at 11 to help weed the garden and it was a job that was ongoing job because it was difficult to keep up to the weeds it's my my grandfather's house it's a famously the uncles that we're here originally must games they're home yeah yeah they're the Chinese completely Chinese but their whole life growing up was here it must be they went to southland school neighborhood was there and they didn't get to play a lot because they had to work the original farmers that were here were brought all of the farming methods over here from the old country their villages from China and it was basically organic farming because they composted they were a couple each farm had a compost pile probably twenty by twenty ten feet high and they used that plus they used natural fertilizers like manure horse manure cow manure chicken manure they used that they didn't and they switched from that to chemical farming after the Second World War when when the chemical companies gained control of the sea made a deep seed production so to get the seed you had to buy the fertilizer so you were basically forced into chemical farming Tony okay even a tiny she you got less farmers farmer building what is she with average joy the double import you see them say employee partner Henry Danny gallery Gloria more expensive it's much cheaper get supplied you know local fresh and a fair fresh vegetables that a fair price that's the really important part I think the work that was going on Cheers was Darrell 'van of the Chinese farmer in this unknown corner of the area that was actually growing vegetables to supplied to the stores to supply to the markets while one of the early industries that the Chinese were permitted to get involved with was agriculture and there was a strong history in Vancouver Metro Vancouver of Chinese truck fire it's important to realize that tough given certain circumstances what did our grandparent to do they made the best of a situation they develop businesses industries major companies farms provided employment nutrition to the community that was running sometimes I think about might be I mean sometime you know sometimes I think that I didn't before my wife I said it might be farming that many young we don't feel hard oh no and we're now getting old he said 36 year up here now and we still going strong you know with that you know with the help of their family and I at least hope to continue to the generation that can write you want to find at work is that stuff I do and take for granted like doing wiring fixing a piece of machinery so flat it's just to me it's so common but everybody thinks you're a genius when you do it so they really appreciate its being there and what I actually you mentioned about dad passing on what I miss about that is it's tough all that knowledge is gone you whose hard work yeah and you know it's one of those things where you learned the value of what it took to do delivery

Channel: chinesecanadianubc

Views: 18,324

Keywords: Covered Roots, history, vancouver, chinese, farm, farming, chrp, ubc, musqueam, canada, canadian, agriculture, CCS, stories, henry yu, eating local

Id: M4WHS2Uf3JU

Length: 22min 51sec (1371 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 14 2012