First posted in anthropologising.ca : 19 September 2001 Last edited: 24 September, 2008
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NOTE: This paper was delivered at a Conference on British Columbia Natural Resources in Victoria around 1960 or 1961. PLEASE EXCUSE the scanning.
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Untitled Address
(Placing Resource Analysis into the context of British Columbia Society)
Ladies and gentlemen, It is a great temptation and an honour to have the last word in a conference of this kind where so many ideas of a controversial nature have been in the air, and this I may say is a temptation to which I shall yield fully.
The picture of British Columbia society that has emerged from these papers is one which to a some extent I agree with. As a matter of fact I find very little objective basis for deciding where my opinion is correct or where the opinion of some of the speakers, with whom I may differ, is correct. This points up one of the grave facts we have to face when we are undertaking analysis on the theme of this conference, namely that there has been very little comprehensive objective analysis in the field of social behaviour as it applies in British Columbia. I am not here referring specifically to the papers that we have had in this Conference, many of which, as a matter of fact, are pioneering in their field. I am referring rather to the more broadly based sociological background from which we can begin to draw some conclusions, for by and large this simply does not exist for the Province.
Perhaps I can illustrate this by referring to some of the highlights of the papers and to some of the alternative hypotheses as they have occurred to me, and then leaving it to
you to see whether you yourselves are satisfied with the evidence as a basis for judging between them.
It has been said on many occasions in this conference and outside it that the British Columbian of today is giving up an older, pioneer, rural way of life, and is becoming a kind of suburban resident spread throughout the Province, up the narrow valleys, and along the routes of communication. When I hear such statements I ask myself what urban or suburban life is it that is spreading in this fashion?
Because it seems to me as I go about the Province that, to say the least, Skidegate is rather different from Kamloops, Kamloops from Victoria, that Lillooet and New Denver have little in common, that it would hardly be fair to compare Bella Bella (or Bella Coola for that matter) with Burnaby. I also feel that the kind of society that is present in such towns as Hazelton and Port St. James has much more in common With the way of life in small South Pacific communities such as Vila in the New Hebrides and Samarai in New Guinea, than with Victoria or Trail.
But having made that rather flat-footed statement I wonder what are the criteria that I am using to make the comparison. I admit immediately that my judgement is based upon personal experience and prejudice and. not upon systematic
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