Kanaka Creek
Kanaka Creek flows southwest through the municipality of Maple Ridge, in southwestern
British Columbia. Presumably, it was settled at one time by Hawaiʻians, known colloquially as “kanakas”,
meaning “person” or “man”, which, according to Koppel, was a term
widely used in the nineteenth century in the Pacific to refer to Pacific Islanders
in general.
1Koppel goes on to note that at one time so-called Kanakas
constituted between thirty and sixty percent
of the HBC’s workforce.
2 The Akrigg’s add that in circa 1850,
Continual desertions by men heading for the California gold-fields left the Company
almost entirely dependent upon Kanakas
and local First Nations to sail ships and cultivate farmland.
3 During the same period, 16 of the 62 men (25%) that comprised
Fort Victoria’s defense and serving force were Kanakas.
4
- 1. Tom Koppel, Kanaka: The Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific
Northwest (Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1995), 139.
- 2. Ibid.
- 3. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Chronicle, 1847-1871 (Victoria: Discovery Press, 1977), 34.
- 4. Koppel, Kanaka, 66.