The Hidden Story Behind Vancouver's Twin Peaks
/The Lions are two of the most iconic mountain peaks in Canada, towering over Vancouver, lending their name to the B.C. Lions, the Lionsgate Bridge and more. But they also have a much, much older name; one that’s tied to a time long before the city was founded.
This episode, maybe even more than any other we’ve done so far, relied on collaboration beyond our little team.
We want to thank Stefany Mathias so much for reading the passage from “The Two Sisters”. As we mention in the episode, she’s the great-granddaughter of Joe and Mary Capilano and one of sixteen hereditary chiefs of the Squamish Nation. She’s also an actor who you might know from shows like DaVinci’s Inquest and Longmire. It’s a dream come true to have her read that passage. You can follow her on:
Instagram: @stefany_mathias
Twitter: @stefanymathias
And Facebook: Stefany Mathias
If you’d like to learn more about the history of the Squamish Nation, they share a bit more about it on their website.
We were also honoured to be guests on the territory of the Six Nations near Brantford, Ontario, while we were filming at Chiefswood. Pauline Johnson’s birthplace and childhood home is a national historic site now, which you can visit yourself here.
The Six Nations shares a bit more about the history of the Haudenosaunee on their website, too
Johnson loved Vancouver’s natural surroundings, and spent long hours exploring the city’s waters in her canoe. She even did a little renaming of her own while she was there: coming up with a new moniker for a little tidal bay that has been turned into a permanent lake in Stanley Park. The Squamish called it Ch'ekxwa'7lech; the settlers called it Coal Harbour; Johnson wrote a poem about it called “The Lost Lagoon” and that’s still the name it’s known by today.
Fun fact: Johnson was the very first Canadian woman to appear on a stamp. And just a few years ago, she was one of the five women picked as finalists when the government was deciding who to feature on the new $10 bill. (They eventually picked Viola Desmond, who might be in your wallet right now.)
We’d also like to thank the family of Ben Lim. He’s the North Vancouver artist who did the illustrations for the 1961 edition of Legends of Vancouver, which is an absolutely gorgeous little book. We’re thrilled to have been able to use his art in our episode. Sadly, he passed away in 2016, but he left a remarkable artistic legacy behind, including extraordinary ceramic sculptures of the wildlife of the West Coast. You can see his art here.
Those giant old trees that used to tower above the forest floor in the places where Vancouver’s glass skyscrapers now stand weren’t only coveted by the city’s own settlers. Some of them were chopped down to be sent off to China on the order of the Celestial Emperor of China. He used them to make huge beams — dozens of them — which are now part of the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing’s Forbidden City. You may also know that gate by its Chinese name: The Tiananmen. And if you’re interested in Chinese gates, then oh boy, do we ever have an episode for you.
Oh, and while we’re at it, we’ve also got an episode about King Edward VII — the monarch that Joe Capilano petitioned on his trip to London. Or, at least, about a statue of the king that stands in a park outside the Ontario legislature in Toronto, but which used to stand outside a 400 year-old fort half a world away.
*Correction: the photo shown at 4:40 is of the Kwakwakaʼwakw of Northern Vancouver Island/mainland area. We regret the mistake and aim to avoid similar ones at all costs in the future.
Episode Transcript:
These are The Lions. They tower in the distance above Vancouver, reaching 5,000 feet into the sky. They're two of the most iconic peaks in Canada, and you'll find their name written all over the city below. The Lions are where the BC Lions football team gets its name. Vancouver's famous Lions Gate Bridge, too. There's Lionsgate Entertainment which produced Mad Men, The Hunger Games, and Orange Is The New Black. A Lions Gate Hospital, Lions Gate Marina, even a Lions Gate Lager.
But these rocky peaks haven't been known as The Lions for very long.
That's a new name. They have another one. A much much older name with a deep connection to the history of this place and to a powerful story Vancouver nearly forgot.
This is Canadiana.
Meet the Capilano’s, Joe and Mary. Sa7plek and Líxwelut.
They were leaders of the Squamish Nation, one of the Coast Salish peoples. Their ancestors had been living in the place we now call British Columbia for thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived. In fact, when the first British explorer, George Vancouver, sailed up to the spot where Vancouver now stands, Mary's grandfather was there to meet him.
So, the Capilano’s knew the Lions very well.
Joe was the first person ever known to have scaled the western peak. He chased some mountain goats up there during a hunting expedition. But the Capilano’s didn't call these mountains The Lions. To them, these were the Two Sisters. A name that came from a powerful Squamish legend, and one that was about to be erased and written over. You see, the Capilano’s were born in the middle of the 1800s. When they were young this is what Vancouver looked like.
The city hadn't been founded yet. Joe would live to be 60 years old. Mary made it to 104. And over the course of their lifetimes, things were going to change a lot.
1867.
That's when this guy showed up with a barrel of whiskey. His name was Gassy Jack Deighton and he wanted to open a saloon on this spot. Some of the biggest trees in the world grew here, and that attracted loggers and saw mill workers who were chopping down those majestic forests as quick as they could.
It was thirsty work, so he used the barrel of whiskey to bribe them into building his new saloon for him, and then they immediately became his best customers. Before long, the trees were gone and a new settlement had sprung up around the saloon, Gastown, which quickly became the heart of the booming city of Vancouver. And the sellers who flooded into this new city brought their own stories with them, their own histories, their own names
All over Canada, settlers had been replacing local indigenous place names with names that reminded them of the countries they and their ancestors had left behind, and in Vancouver, it would be no different.
John Hamilton Gray was one of those newcomers.
He'd made his name far on the other side of the country as the Premiere of New Brunswick and a father of confederation. But now he was a judge on British Columbia's supreme court. To him, the mountains looked like lions, British lions, like the ones sitting in London's Trafalgar Square.
And the new name stuck. So as far as the settlers of Vancouver were concerned, these mountains were named after a couple of statues sitting in an imperial capital half a world away.
The indigenous name was erased, its history ignored. The Sisters had become The Lions. But, of course, not everyone forgot. The Capilano’s and the Squamish remembered, even as their civilization was being shaken to the core.
As settlers poured into BC, local First Nations were forced off their land, some without even the pretense of negotiating a treaty. Residential schools were set up, traditional ceremonies were banned, indigenous people weren't allowed to vote. The Coast Salish peoples even found some of their traditional territory sitting down there.
A dam was built, flooding this valley to create a reservoir for Vancouver's drinking water. And this artificial new lake was given an ironic name. This is Capilano Lake. It was one of the few indigenous names that wasn't erased.
Today, you'll find it all over North Vancouver, the area where Joe and Mary Capilano and their people lived and where a Squamish community of thousands is still living to this day. This, for instance, is the Capilano Suspension Bridge over the Capilano River which runs through the Capilano Canyon in Capilano River Regional Park. It's an anglicized version of a Squamish word, Kia'palano, a name for the local people and a title of honor for Squamish leaders, a title Chief Joe Capilano earned while he and Mary were tirelessly campaigning for indigenous rights.
They demanded the return of traditional hunting grounds, that sacred burial sites be protected, that the ban on potlatch ceremonies be lifted and the indigenous people should at least be consulted about the laws that affected their lives. In return, Vancouver newspapers branded him a nuisance, some accused him of inciting revolt. Government officials called for his arrest, but he refused to be intimidated.
Chief Capilano took his arguments to the provincial government in Victoria, and to the federal government in Ottawa, and then all the way to England to present a petition to King Edward VII. He traveled 7,000 kilometers and was given 15 minutes. The petition was ignored. But the trip wasn't a total waste.
It was there, in England, that Chief Capilano met a welcome new ally. Someone who would help bring the history of the Two Sisters to a whole new audience. Someone from back home. Someone from Canada.
We're in southern Ontario. This is the territory of the Six Nations, the Haudenosaunee, the people the Europeans called the Iroquois. And this is Chiefswood. This is the house where one of the greatest poets in Canadian history grew up.
Meet Pauline Johnson. Her mother was English, her father was a Mohawk chief, so she was raised in both cultures. Her mother taught her the rules of colonial etiquette, while her grandfather told her tales from the oral history of Haudenosaunee. Both cultures would play a very important role in her poetry and in her live performances.
For half of her act she appeared in all the finery of a typical Victorian gentlewoman and read love poems and odes to the Canadian wilderness, for the other half she'd come out on stage in costume as the popular romanticized image of an Indian princess regaling the audience with stories told from an indigenous perspective. Turning the racist stereotype to her advantage and using it as a way to tell the stories she wanted to tell.
Audiences loved it.
She became famous for poems like "The Song My Paddle Sings" and "A Cry From An Indian Wife." Touring across Canada to enthusiastic crowds. She even found success performing in England, and when she heard that a delegation of chiefs from the west coast of Canada was in London at the same time, she made sure to introduce herself.
It was the beginning of a remarkable partnership. By then, life on the road was weighing her down. Soon, she was ready to retire.
Vancouver had long been one of her favorite cities, so it's here that she came to spend her final days. And when she did, Chief Capilano was there to welcome her in full ceremonial dress. Neither of them had much time left.
He was about to catch a fatal case of tuberculosis, she would soon discover the breast cancer eating away at her chest. But they spent many of their last days together. Johnson sat quiet, listening to the Capilano’s as they shared their stories.
Some of the oral histories of the Coast Salish peoples. They told her stories about the trees here in Stanley Park, about the waters surrounding the city, about the islands that rise from their depths. They told her the story of this rock. Of a father turned to stone and of the good in his heart that kept growing out of the top as a tree. When Chief Capilano died, Johnson was there to say goodbye.
As his coffin was lowered into the ground, she whispered a heartbreaking promise, "I'm coming, I'm coming." Her cancer was spreading, but she had one last thing to finish before she joined him in the grave. She'd been sharing his stories with the rest of the city, writing them out for magazines, reminding Vancouver of a time before Vancouver.
When Pauline Johnson died, the city declared an official day of mourning. Her funeral was the biggest Vancouver had ever seen and her ashes were laid to rest here in Stanley Park along with a copy of the legends she'd been told by the Capilano’s.
Shortly before her death they'd been compiled as a book, "The Legends of Vancouver." It became an instant best seller, the city's first. The initial print run sold out in just a week. And one of the most popular tales in this book was a story of two sisters.
The story of "The Two Sisters" as told by Chief Joe Capilano to Pauline Johnson begins many thousands of years ago, before these mountain peaks existed when a chief held a great feast, a potlatch to celebrate the coming of age of his twin daughters.
It came at a time of war, so the two daughters asked their father to invite their enemies to join them at the feast, which he did and the invitation brought peace to the two warring nations. The creator, the Sagalie Tyee, was so impressed he rewarded the daughters for their generosity.
- [Stefany] "I will make these young-eyed maidens immortal,' he said. In the cup of his hands he lifted the chief's two daughters and set them forever in a high place, for they had borne two offspring; peace and brotherhood. Each of which is now a great tyee ruling this land. And on the mountain crest the chief's daughters can be seen wrapped in the suns, the snows, the stars of all seasons.
For they have stood in this high place for thousands of years, and they will stand for thousands of years to come guarding the peace of the Pacific coast and the quiet of the Capilano Canyon."
So, if you know Vancouver, you might've noticed that I didn't use the name of this incredibly famous rock. It's commonly known as Siwash Rock, but it's in the process of being renamed, and I'll tell you why in a second.
But first, I wanna thank you so much for watching. If you'd like to see more incredible stories about the history of Canada, please click Subscribe. You can also follow us on social media, @thisiscanadiana. We have many more stories to tell, but to tell them we will need your help. You can become a patron on Patreon and just give us a one time donation on PayPal. Every little bit helps us tell more stories like these.
Now, back to the rock.
It's known as Siwash Rock because that word means indigenous person, or First Nations person in the old Chinook jargon. But the root of the word is from the French word, Sauvage, Savage. So it's incredibly disrespectful, and Vancouver has finally agreed to rename the rock and they're currently in the process of consulting with local First Nations to decide what the new name will be for one Vancouver's most famous landmarks.
I'm Adam Bunch and we'll see you next time on Canadiana.