Black Creek Pioneer Village Renaming

Woke culture ensures nothing can ever center white people

Image of the Black Creek Pioneer Village from Toronto and Region Conservation Authority

By Igor Stravinsky (Teacher, commentator)

The Black Creek Pioneer Village is well-known to most people in the GTA. Many of us visited it as kids and learned a bit about how many people lived in the mid-19th century. We visited the woodshop, the tinsmith’s shop, the blacksmith’s shop, etc. Staff dressed up in period attire and there were domestic animals typical of the era. 

Likewise, there were places like Crawford Lake which were focused on how Indigenous people lived in the past. There we visited longhouses and saw examples of indigenous horticulture and cultural practices, etc.  

But these days, you can’t have a site that focuses just on pioneers anymore. The word “pioneer” has fallen into disfavour, because ever-so-fragile indigenous activists don’t like the idea that these people were “among the first to explore or settle a new country or area”, as the word is commonly defined. The activists bristle at that notion, even though the pioneers really were the first modern people to live here, never mind that the population of Canada in 1860 was 3.4 million and growing fast while the indigenous population was about 125 thousand. 

So, the recent announcement that the Black Creek Pioneer Village will be renamed to “The Village at Black Creek” is not really surprising. It’s straight out of the woke playbook. These days, anything that focuses on white people (Europeans or any other “settlers”) is frowned upon, even though they made up 96% of the population at the time.  

The Black Creek Pioneer Village website tells us:

It is time to change the narrative at Black Creek Pioneer Village. Recognizing that for too long the site focused on settlers of European descent, the Village has been working to change the narrative by collaborating with Indigenous scholars, artists, elders, and community members since 2017.

Given the torrential flow of misinformation we’re getting these days from Indigenous activists and their virtue signaling sycophants in government, business, and the legacy media, we can look forward to plenty of it about Indigenous people being crammed down our throats at future site visits. We will likely be expected to shake our heads disapprovingly as we are reminded about how villages such as this one “displaced” indigenous people leading to “genocide”. We will also be told how wise, peaceful, and ingenious the Indigenous people were and collectively lament that settlers were too foolish to see the wisdom of Indigenous ways (respect for the land, living peacefully and sustainably, etc.). No one will mention that Indigenous groups had been displacing and enslaving one another for millennia. 

It is worth noting that this village, whatever you call it, never existed. It is a simulated period village made up of objects and artifacts pulled together at the site from all over Southern Ontario. Thus, it is intended to represent pioneer life in general, not a specific village. What kinds of interactions did residents of these types of villages typically have with Indigenous people? That is an interesting question. My guess is not much. But I could be wrong. And any information about that would certainly be welcome. 

Well, you might say, this change in focus to include Indigenous people, who likely had little or nothing to do with day-to-day goings on at such villages of the day may be out of character, but nevertheless we can always stand to learn more about Indigenous people. I suppose that’s true, but as mentioned above I have little confidence that the information we will get will be accurate given all the nonsense we keep hearing about clandestine burials of murdered Indian Residential School kids etc. 

But then the plan for the new narrative of the new Black Creek Pioneer Village becomes truly surreal:

To continue “re-storying” the Village, we are beginning to partner with other equity-deserving communities to ensure that their stories – from their perspectives and in their words – are also shared with visitors to the Village.

That’s right- they’re getting input from “the Black and 2SLGBTQ+ communities” to ensure those “voices are heard at the Village” (as it is known by workers and regular patrons). So, on future visits, you can likely look forward to hearing about Indigenous genocide and Victorian anti-black racism as well as homo/trans phobia of the day.

The Village management laments that attendance has never recovered from the drastic drop experienced during the pandemic. This new narrative they are establishing will ensure it never does.  

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read Violence in Peel District School Board Schools

BREAKING NEWS:

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