This month will see the official launch, in English, of the digital exhibition The Francophone Ranchers of the BC Interior Plateau, 1860s-1870s.

It will take place with Société historique francophone de la C.-B. executive director Maurice Guibord at the Museum of Vancouver (Joyce Whaley room), 1100 Chestnut St., Vanier Park, on Friday, March 29 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Admission is free.

In 2019, the SHFCB received a grant from Digital Museums Canada to launch onsite research in the Cariboo and the Okanagan on the history of Francophones who launched ranches in those regions in the 1860s-'70s, to hold oral history interviews with the descendants of these families, and to create from the results a bilingual digital exhibition available on the website of DMC, in both official languages.

The eight families that became the focus of the project are, in alphabetical order: Boucherie, Guichon, Isnardy, Lequime, Minnaberriet, Patenaude, Pigeon, and Versepuech. They were not the only Francophones to have established ranches in the BC interior, but they stood out in the research, both in their historical presence during those decades but also in the contributions of their descendants in a wide array of fields.

The history of these ranches, it must be stressed, is a history of colonization, of the establishment of businesses and industries, then of villages and towns, on lands appropriated from First Nations. Still, you will see how the Indigenous members of these families found their respective places, then as well as more recently, during their historical journeys. It is indeed from these families that SHFCB has been directed to disseminate the facts unearthed during this project.

Do not miss this launch, presenting the new and sometimes staggering facts that came to light during the project, where mixed-race members triumphed over a succession of difficult paths.