The U’mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

The pride of Alert Bay is the U’mista Cultural Centre, which opened in 1980, and has an excellent display of artifacts relating to an important part of the culture of the First Nations people - the Potlatch.

The word potlatch comes from a word meaning ‘to give’, and that is loosely what the potlatch is about, the giving of gifts as a show of your generosity. The First Nations people place a high a value on a person’s generosity, so Chiefs would wish to display theirs by giving gifts, and a potlatch was where this would happen.

However, it was rather more important than that, as the potlatch effectively formed part of their legal process too.

The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

Potlatches were held by the chief of a tribe to mark important events. Much like in our own culture, people might gather to mark significant life events, such as births, marriages and deaths, and the coronations or inaugurations of new leaders. But whereas for us, the purpose of attending an event is simply to celebrate or commemorate it, for the First Nations people it would also serve the equivalent purpose of the legal record.

The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

We leave all that to the registrar or some other official, who keeps a written record of what has transpired, but in this culture, there is no such official, and no written communication, so the people who attended the event, which would include those from other tribes, would effectively act as those who would bear witness to it, should the need ever arise.

The potlatch ceremony would include storytelling and dance, and whatever the official business of the day was, followed by the giving out of the gifts. The fact that the guests take the gifts offered, confirms that they accept the event that has taken place, and will attest to it.

The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

This was all fine until we white settlers came along and wanted to ‘civilise’ everyone. Quite why we have the arrogance to believe that our way of doing things is the only right way, I don’t know, but that’s a question for another day. It wasn’t a problem early on, but as the colonial systems became established, frustrations grew with those pesky people that would insist on doing things their own way.

Chilkat Blanket, The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

In 1884, the first version of the Indian Act was passed, in an effort to stop the potlatch taking place, but it was ineffectual. The law was later revised, and when the potlatches continued, the authorities started to crack down. In December 1921, a potlatch was held in a place called Village Island, and forty-five people were arrested. Twenty-two of those were convicted of offences such as dancing, making speeches, and the giving of gifts.

The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

The sentences were suspended on condition that the tribe that each individual belonged to turned in all of their masks, chests and other items that were connected to the holding of a potlatch. The items confiscated were thankfully not destroyed, but were passed out to two main museums and private collectors.

Chilkat Blanket, The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

In this way, the First Nations tribes lost a huge part of their culture and heritage, as well as their established method of recording events. Some potlatches did continue ‘underground’ usually held during storms, when only the First Nations people were confident in travelling by canoe, as would have been necessary to reach the venues.

Items made from woven cedar bark, The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

Whilst I’m not going to go into it further now, I do just want to mention that of course the potlatch wasn’t the only thing that was banned. The legislation banned the use of First Nations languages, and required children to be sent to ‘residential schools’ where they were taught to abandon their own ways in favour of western culture and process, undermining the ability of the First Nations people to keep their culture and way of life alive.

Chilkat Blanket, The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

The Indian Act was revised again in 1951, and section 149 on the banning of the potlatch was deleted, but never officially repealed.  Nonetheless, in the latter third of the 1900s, steps were taken to start repatriating the potlatch ceremonial items that had been confiscated.

The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

The National Museum of Man in Ottawa, which had received a large share of the items, decided to return them to the First Nations people, on condition that two new museums were built to house them. This U’mista Cultural Centre is one of the two museums, and it now has a great collection of items.

Unfortunately, no photos were allowed in that section of the museum, so I can’t show you any of the pieces that they have. The photos that I have included were from the permitted section, and show other items of First Nations art and weaving.

The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

Those sections are OK, but probably not as good as the museums in Vancouver and Victoria. In terms of information and analysis, I would have liked to see more exploration of the issues surrounding the potlatch being banned, its impact, how the tribes tried to adapt, and now that it is being brought back into the culture, how these traditional aspects and stories are being reconciled with more western education, knowledge and process.

That said, the museum is definitely worth a visit, just for the potlatch ceremonial items, which are both interesting for their history and great pieces of artwork in their own right.

Head and neckwear, The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

Blanket and apron, The U'Mista Cultural Centre, Alert Bay

Rosario - home of the Argentine flag

Rosario

When we were in South America back in 2012, we visited Rosario, but unfortunately it didn’t work out too well for us. Firstly, we arrived to discover that a booking error meant that our nice centrally located hostel didn’t have a room for us.

They were very apologetic, and very helpful in finding us a place to stay, but the fact that it was a major bank holiday weekend meant that the best they could do was a room back out by the bus station, a taxi ride away.

Rosario

That was inconvenient, but not nearly as problematic as the fact that I then managed to wake up in the morning with my back out. This actually made the room change a bit more welcome, as I could just about crawl to its en-suite bathroom, whereas the original booking would have seen us in a room where I would have had to make it either up or down a flight of stairs to one of the shared bathrooms. That would not have been good!

Whilst my back recovered quite quickly then, it still meant that we never got to see any of the city, so we decided that we would try again this time. Happily, second time around was rather more successful. Our Airbnb room was ready and waiting, and aside from Nic still having a little bit of a problem with his recovering ankle, there were no unexpected health issues, so we were able to get around and see the place.

Rosario

Rosario is a great little city, albeit in a rather understated and quiet way. There isn’t a great deal to ‘do’ in the way of tourist sights, but that also means that, especially as we drift into autumn, there aren’t that many tourists here either. Like Buenos Aires, it is a city that has lots of fabulous old buildings dotted along the streets, some of them well preserved, others faded and crumbling, but all of them adding to the character and feel of the streets.

Argentine Flag

I
It is slightly surprising, but also quite refreshing, that they don’t make more of the fact that Che Guevara was born here, but one thing that you can’t fail to notice here, is the preponderance of the Argentine flag. The people of Rosario are proud of their flag. This isn’t because they are that much more patriotic than their fellow countrymen, but rather because this was where the flag was first flown, by Manuel Belgrano, in 1812 during the Argentine War of Independence.

National Flag Memorial, Rosario

The Monumento National a la Bandera, or the National Flag Memorial, is a huge monolithic structure, which unfortunately was undergoing renovations while we were there, so the mirror pool was empty, and there was scaffolding on some of it. But still, there is no doubting that the people of Rosario wanted to celebrate their connection to the flag. There were a couple of school groups visiting in the time that we were there, so clearly it is still regarded as an important part of their history.

National Flag Memorial, Rosario

As well as the monument itself, there is a wall full of plaques that have been sent by other cities to commemorate various anniversaries of the flag. It is a strange concept to me, that so much time, effort and money should have been put into celebrating a flag. I grant that it is quite a pretty flag, but then I rather like the design of our own Union Flag, but I still wouldn’t want to see this kind of fuss made over it.

National Flag Memorial, Rosario

We visited a couple of museums here, but both were sadly a little disappointing. The Museo de la Memoria, was different to many, in that it used artworks to express some of the stories and emotions of the Dirty War, but it didn’t really add anything in terms of information. As in Cordoba, it is located in a building that was used to hold and torture those arrested, but here, you didn’t really get any sense of being in such a place, or at least we didn’t.

The Museo de la Ciudad, or City Museum was OK, but was a bit light on content. We had read that it looks at the history of the city, and at the people who have lived there, including the indigenous people. What was there was interesting, but it felt to us a bit like they had the nice extra bits, without having some of the more substantial fundamentals.

National Flag Memorial, Rosario

It didn’t help that it was entirely in Spanish, some of it quite complex, so although we understood a reasonable amount, we definitely didn’t get it all, and may have got the wrong end of the stick. On balance, I would say that if you are around the park area, and can speak some Spanish, it is worth dropping in for a while, but otherwise, it may not be the best way to spend your time. If you are there, there was quite a nice place to eat nearby, called Los Potrillos.

Talking of restaurants, we also took a wander along the waterfront, which is quite a popular activity amongst locals, and ended up in a swish place called Don Ferro. It is in an old railway building, and both looks good, and had excellent food.

Rosario

Rosario also had a number of that kind of nice relaxing café that we had found so lacking in Cordoba, though sadly we had to resist the tasty looking cakes in them. There was one café called Esperia, that we would have liked to have sampled more of, including the cocktails that they serve, had we not been back to being good on our diets.

Overall, we liked Rosario, even though there isn’t a huge amount in the way of good tourist attractions.

Waterfront venues, Rosario

Old Railway lines, Rosario

Rosario

Rosario

Kanchanaburi and the Death Railway

Having crossed into Thailand, we were almost at the end of our Dragoman trip; Kanchanaburi was our only stop before reaching our final destination of Bangkok.

The town itself was nice enough, with some reasonable places to eat, but the main reason to go to the Death Railway Museum, and to visit the nearby and infamous Bridge over the River Kwai.

If you've seen the film of the same name, you'll probably know that the bridge was built during World War II under the command of the Japanese, using the labour of the allied forces prisoners of war. You may also know how terribly badly these men were treated, with many dying from such things as malnutrition, exhaustion cholera, malaria and dysentery, as well as those killed directly by the Japanese.

What you may not know, is that in fact the POWs were much fewer, and better treated, compared to the rest of the labourers who had been brought in from nearby countries.

Reported numbers vary a little, but around 61,811 POWs (30,131 British, 13,004 Australian, 17,990 Dutch and 680 US) were forced to work on the Death Railway, and 12,621 of them (6,904 British, 2,802 Australian, 2,782 Dutch and 133 US) died before the war was over. Many of the Dutch were in fact from the Dutch East Indies, and so they - and importantly the medics amongst them - were more used to the tropical diseases encountered here, which helped their survival rate compared to other nationalities.

The number of POWs though was dwarfed though by that of the Romusha. The Japanese brought in Asian workers from Burma, Thailand other areas such as The Malay Peninsula and Singapore. Some of these men volunteered, having been promised good conditions and good wages, but many were coerced or even simply rounded up and taken. Either way, their working conditions were even worse that that of the POWs.

The number of romusha workers used is unknown, but many sources estimates around 150,000, with 90,000 of them having died; however some sources suggest that numbers may have been as high as 300,000, with as many as half of them dying.

The construction of the 285 mile (415km) length railway, stretching from Ban Pong in Thailand to Thanbyuzayat in Burma, went across incredibly difficult terrain. It was built to provide an alternative route to take supplies into Burma, which had recently been taken by the Japanese. Work commenced, using just hand tools and hard labour, in June 1942 and finished ahead of schedule, on 17 October 1943.

We visited the Death Railway Museum, the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, and Bridge 277, or the 'Bridge Over the River Kwai', which more accurately spans the Mae Klong river.

The railway was decommissioned after the war, and the bridge itself was partly destroyed by the Allied forces in 1945, but it has been rebuilt, enabling us to walk across it. I like the idea of it being kept as a memorial to the men who died building the railway, so I was pleased that we would be visiting here.


Unfortunately, as with too many places, there is too much focus on tourism, where it should be on memorial. There is a restaurant overlooking the bridge, and countless souvenir shops peddling all sorts of tacky items. Personally, I would have preferred that this be a place of quiet contemplation, with the emphasis on remembrance.