A Writers Literary Landmark and Writers-in-Residence Centre for Vancouver


The following is a message from Anton Wagner, of the Save the Kogawa Homestead Committee:

Dear Todd,

Thank you for the great article “How important is saving Kogawa House?
What other literary landmarks are in Vancouver?” on the
http://www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com website.

I totally agree with Alan Twigg's suggestion to Ann-Marie that we also
focus our campaign to save Joy's former home on Margaret Atwood's
recognition of Vancouver's cultural desert of literary landmarks. As
Alan writes in his entry on Pauline Johnson in the BC Bookworld Author
Bank, “The Pauline
Johnson memorial in Stanley Park, above Third Beach, is the only
literary monument erected in Vancouver for a Canadian writer during the
20th century.”

Johnson died in 1913.

Other provinces and much smaller towns have established and supported
such literary landmarks and a few writers-in-residence programs:

The Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism maintains the
Margaret Laurence House in Neepawa as the Manitoba Provincial Heritage
Site No. 25
http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/hrb/prov/p025.html

In St. Boniface the non-profit corporation La Maison Gabrielle Roy Inc.
operates the Gabrielle Roy House as a museum for the Franco-Manitoban
writer with project grants from the federal, provincial and municipal
governments and corporate, foundation and individual donor support. To
date 105 women and 37 men have donated $1,000 each to the House.
http://www.maisongabrielleroy.mb.ca

In Eastend, Saskatchewan, the Eastend Arts Council owns and operates
the Wallace Stegner House as a writer/artist's residence. Rent is $250
a month, including all utilities. The furnished house, built in 1916,
contains a kitchen, dining, living room, study, two bedrooms and a bath
and can accommodate two adults and one child. The house is funded in
part by the Saskatchewan Heritage Foundation, the Writers' Development
Trust, provincial, federal and civic government grants, and individual
donations.
http://www.dinocountry.com/stegner_house.html

In Dawson City, the Yukon Arts Council and the Klondike Visitor's
Association and the Dawson City Libraries Association operate the
Berton House Writer's Residence Retreat. Initiated by Pierre Burton in
his former boyhood home, the Writer's Residence Retreat enables
professional Canadian writers to
write in the remote Northern community free of charge.

One item of great interest in your

http://users.yknet.yk.ca/dcpages/bertonhouse/story.html link is the
last April 2001 item on that page, “Canada Council to support Berton
House writers.” It reports a grant of $100,000 from the Canada Council
over a three-year period to the Berton House Writer's Retreat Society
to enable four Canadian or
international writers to be in residence in the house for three months
each, with a monthly fellowship of $2,000 and travel cost assistance.
This would be a great precendent for us in seeking financial operating
assistance from the Canada Council.

But again, no such writing centre and literary landmark exists in
Vancouver.The Federation of BC Writers operates a small writing cabin,
gifted by George Fetherling, the Horsefly Manor Writers Retreat on
Quesnel Lake in the Cariboo.
http://www.bcwriters.com/horsefly/

Lorna Crozier has informed us that the Haig-Brown House in Campbell
River, operated by the non-profit conservation organization, the
Haig-Brown Institute, has just opened its doors to writers, with Don
McKay being the first writer-in-residence.
http://www.haigbrowninstitute.org
 
Vancouver, one of Canada's most dynamic cities and our gateway to the
East, needs a writers-in-residence centre as has been proposed for the
Joy Kogawa House so that Canadian and international writers can observe
and write about the unique evolving multi and intercultural society
that is developing
in Canada.

Anton Wagner

How important is saving Kogawa House?  What other literary landmarks are in Vancouver?

Alan Twigg, author and publisher of BC Book World, says that Vancouver
only really has one literary landmark, and that one was controversial
and created under protest – the gravesite of poet
Pauline Johnson. Ann-Marie Metten, was talking with the
author of First Invaders: the literary origins of British Columbia and Aborginality which detail the first
writings about British Columbia. 

If we can save and preserve the Kogawa Homestead, then we have the real
life equivalent of the fictional Anne of Green Gables House. 
http://greengables.tripod.com/locations.html
With the new Vancouver Opera creation of Naomi's Road, then we now have
the West Coast equivalent of the ever popular Anne of Green Gables
musical.

The Save the Kogawa Homestead Committee would like to preserve the
former Kogawa House as a writer's retreat, where the house could serve
as a temporary home for visiting writers, immersing themselves in
multicultural Vancouver, while providing a historic landmark to the
thousands of Japanese Canadians who once made up the fishing community
of Marpole neighborhood, but were uprooted from their homes, branded as
enemy aliens, and interened at re-location camps away from the Pacific
Coast.

There are few historic houses preserved in BC.  Our history is
still young, and many of our residents are immigrants with little
knowledge of BC's history.

Only a small handful of the homes of Canada's greatest Canadians or
writers are preserved or acknowledged.  Pierre Berton was born in
a cottage in Dawson City, Yukon.  Berton spent $50,000 to buy the
house to donate it to the Dawson City community where it is now a
historic landmark known as Berton House.
http://users.yknet.yk.ca/dcpages/bertonhouse/story.html

Other BC homes have been turned into historic landmarks or
museums.  But none that I know of are by writers, nor homes that
were confiscated from Japanese Canadians during World War 2.  In
addition to becoming a writers' retreat, Kogawa
House would also represent the tragedy of the upheaval and internment
of the
Japanese-Canadian community and how we overcome our prejudices by
recognizing it and turning it into an important community landmark.

Haig-Brown House Education Centre
2250 Campbell River Road,
Campbell River
B.C. V9W 4N7
http://www.britishcolumbia.com/attractions/?id=67

Rodde House Preservation Society
1415 Barclay Street
Vancouver, B.C.
Canada
V6G 1J6
(604) 684-7040
http://www.roeddehouse.org/

Emily Carr House
207 Government Street
Victoria
B.C. V8V 2K3
Telephone: (250) 383-5843
Fax: (250) 356-7796
http://www.britishcolumbia.com/attractions/?id=63

Irving House
302 Royal Avenue,
New Westminster
(604) 521-7656
URL: http://www.city.new-westminster.bc.ca/cityhall/museum/
http://www.discovervancouver.com/articles/irving-house.asp