° When they met a few years ago, John Veillette + Wasa fine arts student ‘at U.B.C,,. and Gary “White was running the Interior News at .. Smithers, John had grown up in Savona, near Kamloops, and he’d been interested for a good many years in the old wooden churches of B.C.'s Interior. Buildings on reserves were especially - interesting because Indian congregations hadn't renovated or changed their churches as much as the more prosperouswhite.‘communities had. - Many of their Indian churches still had the authentic air of the 1890's frontier about them. + Both John and Gary knew that these buildings all over the province were disappearing every year - rotting, burning down, collapsing, or being leveled to make way for a new less ‘elaborate structure, So they quit their jobs and set out to photograph as many of them as they could. This involved travelling thousands of ‘miles throughout British Columbia and although Gary and John were able to cover nearly the entire province, limited funds did not enable them to visit some areas accessible only by-boat - or canoe. - --Once their own pictures were printed, they backed them up by collecting a wide range of museum photographs of wooden B.C. churches that no longer exist. | ..In the end, they had pictures of 73 wooden churches builtin B.C. Indian villages. Some are ornate and complicated buildings, decorated With magnificent ninetheenth-century fretwork. But others are simple, built of neatly dovetailed logs, like the frontier houses of their day. All hat bet tear hy é at ‘The Methodist Church, Meanskinluht (Cedarvale) ..The Reverend Robert Tomlinson. sided with william Duncan in Cundan’s conflict wiht Bishop Ridley at Metlakatla, As as result, when Duncan: ‘shad to leave the Church Missionary Soclety, "Tomlinson chose to leave as well, He spent the winter of 1887-88 in Kitwanga and gathered a ” group of converts who moved with him down -Fiver to form an independent Christian villiage. ‘Observation of the Sabbath there was so strict that the new villiage, named Meanskiniskt, “came to be nicknamed The Holy City! | River- :. boats. were not even permitted to dock there to _ take on fuel on Sundays. «Tomlinson established a sawnilll in the village _ “Barly Indian Villages Churches” “.,,.. How the book came to be written recall another age, whether before the last war or before the turn of the century, _ - soln their book, John and Gary have included more than 250 photos of these buildings, from. Bella Coola to Cranbook and from Musqueam to Fort St. James. They've also provided a brief summary of each church’s history, together with an occasional anecdote about the missionaries who directed the churches to be built. .-To help give the reader a general background to enjoying the pictures, the book also tells the story of how the Indians and the missionaries reacted to each other in B.C., describes the building technology and architectural styles of B.C. frontier churches, and presents an account of life in the Indian villages today, where many of the churches are still used. .- When the two authors had captured so much of B.C.’s vanishing heritage on film, they turned to helping restore some of these extraordinary buildings. At Kitwanga and Glen Vowell in the north of the province, they carried out two spectacula r maintenance and reconstruction projects. These are also fully illustrated and described , to provide a fitting conclusion to a truly comprehensive and enjoyable book. . . Early Indian Village Churches, 214 pages, 9x11, November 1977, illustrated, 250 photographs, cloth $29.00, paper $15.00, has been published by the University of British Columbia Press, 2075. Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1W5, and should be available at your local bookstore. TO RU Le Built 1906-7, to provide a financial base for the community, and‘ lumber from Meanskinisht was used to construct the churches at Kitwanga and Hazelton,,as well as the village’e own church, © The building had. twin crenellated fort-like toweres topped by acutely pointed pinnacles and was cruciform in plan. It also'appeéars to have had a number of attractive circular stained galas windows. Fire destroyed it at an unrecor- deddate. ..The congregation in the village of Mean- skinisht, or Cedervaie,as it is now called, is no longer Methodist and presently attends services given by the Salvation Army in the old school “The Holy City” Meanskinisht - Today '- Cedarvale-little more than ghosttown “, Only: an historic marker beside Highway’ ‘18 ‘about twenty or so miles past —_. “Terrace travelling east is left ‘to indicate to the “passing motorist that a short distance away, in “what is today. called “‘Cedatvale” ‘there once “stood, proud and tall the twin-towered fortress .. Travel down the winding dirt road, a quarter ‘mile or so, and there, in an old wooden house, well into her nineties-lives a -bright, cheerful. - pintelligent Native lady who well remembers the ‘like’ wooden church ; at- Meanskinisht “Holy -building of the Church, as well as the passing of | . the steam boats up the Skeena, Not far from her. - ‘doors, which were not allowed to dock there on “take on woodufgemfon the Lord’s Day. A few |’ ‘hundred yards from her home, almost hidden by. ‘fast reclaiming undergrowth, is a cemetery in’ ‘which the Reverend Robert Tomlinson-who built ‘the church during the mid 1900’s-lies budried ‘alongelde other memberg;of his family... ._ “s