The history of Vancouver Island relies heavily on the ocean, but what remains regularly travelled is something locals take for granted. The previously unknown stories that lay under the waves can make their way ashore, revealing remarkable adventures and people.
University of Victoria PhD student Jesse Robertson has done the work deep-diving beneath the surface and on local beaches along the coast, and he’ll be bringing what he’s learned to a talk on March 27.
“When we think of colonialism, often we think about the seizure of land from Indigenous peoples,” says Robertson. “The ocean is actually also a really important space of colonialism.”
While researching archives from British Columbia to California, there was no shortage of information to gather, he says. But managing travel, securing funding, and finding downtime during COVID was still tricky.
“I started the PhD six months before the pandemic and so that changed the experience of being a PhD student,” says Robertson. “Being a PhD student is lonely work at the best of times, and lonely in the academic sense.”
Now being called upon by the Victoria Historical Society to deliver the presentation Dragged from the Surf: Shipwrecks and Rescues on Vancouver Island’s Indigenous Shores, 1859-1906, Robertson is excited to share his knowledge with others.
“I’m talking about shipwrecks,” he says, “so a lot of dramatics and stories within that, and I think some of them are surprising.”
Robertson, who was born on Vancouver Island, says he’s always had a fondness for the ocean and a love of finding peculiar objects that wash ashore. He says it’s been a pleasure to come home to gather more information on the place that started it all.
“I love history that’s local to the region, and I love reading about people who… lived in Victoria in the 19th century,” he says. “I’ve walked past the sites of shipwrecks on the West Coast Trail… It’s sort of deepening my perspective for the history that’s happened here.”
His new perspective shines a light on Indigenous histories and how the knowledge of the original stewards of this land helped people navigate to safety in unknown waters.
“Quite often there’s Indigenous youths that are on board the ships and pointing where they can go safely,” says Robertson. “There’s a whole element of colonial navigation where Indigenous people are playing a pivotal role.”
Adding to important Indigenous efforts, Robertson says that while there’s still work to be done, there have been small ripples of reconciliation in the waters.
“Having some humility about the way that we [as settlers] tell a story on the coast [needs] an understanding that there’s a lot more there that’s worth understanding in this day, too,” he says.
“We are seeing Indigenous people who are making big strides in terms of ensuring that they have a voice at the table when there’s decisions being made about traffic going through the marine territories.”
What makes this seem like a big step in the present has been fought for in the past.
“It looks new; in many ways it is,” he says, “because they have more power in the colonial system than they have had over the past century.”
Dragged from the Surf:
Shipwrecks and Rescues on Vancouver Island’s Indigenous Shores, 1859-1906
7:15 pm Thursday, March 27
$5, James Bay New Horizons
victoriahistoricalsociety.bc.ca