Israel Wood Powell and the Cancel Mob
And more Grave Error controversy
By
“It’s important to have an open mind and if people present information, like the Grave Error, then one should look at it and be able to have a meaningful discussion with other people”. - Mayor Woznow, City of Powell (May 2024)
Does anyone know how to pronounce “qathet”? Yes, it’s spelled with a lowercase “q.” Possibly because upper case letters are considered a colonialist structure and therefore linguistically oppressive. My guess is it's qu-aw-thet, but I suppose it could also be qu-awt-het.
More importantly, did anyone think that when the Powell River Regional District was renamed in 2018 to an unpronounceable word from an indigenous language that exceedingly few from the surrounding area speak or understand, that the activists would somehow be satisfied with this, that they wouldn’t also come for the name of the City of Powell River, and everything else under the sun that is good?
Let’s clear up any confusion on this matter before we go any further. This is no joke. The woke ones are never satisfied. They only know how to be woke, and produce woke. They will not stop until everything is destroyed. It is your mistake if you mistake what I just wrote for histrionics. I will say no more, other than mark my words and file them in a readily accessible part of your mind (up near the front).
Emma Thomson and other local activists want to change the name of the City of Powell River. The book, Grave Error, has entered the name change discourse. Thomson is a self-described “concerned citizen of P*well River” (sic), who wrote to the city council on May 25, 2024, responding to comments made by the Mayor about Grave Error (see quote at the top) that were supportive of free speech and open dialogue (things hated by the woke). Thomson wrote, “Grave Error is not simply a book; it is a vehicle for dangerous ideologies that have no place in our community.” She also believes that "the contents of ‘The Grave Error’ are not only offensive but also harmful.”1 Thomson signed her letter using an asterisk in place of the "o" in "Powell." I presume this is more linguistic activism. And also, her claim that Grave Error is harmful is straight out of the broken record woke playbook. Everything they don’t like causes harm.
My friends and I have certainly caused a lot of trouble with our book, Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools). Actually, I blame Tom Flanagan and Chris Champion, it was their idea, the rest of us hapless writers and researchers had little to do with it. I must admit though, contributing to a book that my mom and three dozen other people would read doesn't sound like as much fun as contributing to one that has blown the lid off everyone's expectations, and become a contentious national phenomenon, best-seller, and even, somewhat of a scandal. Can we call Grave Error a scandal? It certainly deals with one.
The City of Powell River is a former pulp and paper town. Today, a mere 14,000 inhabitants call it home. The Paper Excellent plant was the paper mill that originally opened in 1912. At one time it was thought that 25% of all newspapers around the world were printed on paper from Powell River.2 Sadly, the paper plant closed down in 2021.
Because Grave Error is largely about the Kamloops Indian Residential School (KIRS) and the false unmarked grave claim, the media hysteria and the ensuing copycat claims at other former residential school locations inspired by it, there is a connection to the controversial name change politics in Powell River. The local indigenous band, the Tla’amin First Nation (formerly Sliammon Indian band) claims to have had community members who attended KIRS. Since the apple orchard at the former KIRS site is where 215 unmarked clandestine graves of indigenous children were falsely claimed by the Kamloops Indian Band to have been discovered, Frances Widdowson argues that the attempt to associate the Tla’amin First Nation with KIRS is “to bolster its allegations that ‘atrocities’ and ‘genocide’ had been committed in residential schools, and therefore Powell River’s name should be changed.”3
These false narratives, which originated with KIRS, are being used as justification for appeasing and catering to the wants of indigenous interests. According to the activist position, Israel Wood Powell played a role in the establishment of the Indian Residential School system (including KIRS) and other colonial policies that harmed indigenous people and separated them from their culture. This is illustrated in a letter to the Mayor and Council of the City of Powell River, from June of 2021 (one month after the Kamloops hoax). Tla’amin Hegus John Hacket demanded that Powell River be re-named:
“If the City believes in reconciliation, it must disassociate our homelands with the name of Israel Powell, a man who was instrumental in carrying out the residential school policy and is credited with outlawing the potlatch. This legacy has been devastating to our people, inflicting severe generational trauma and causing irreversible loss to our culture and language. In light of the recent finding of a 215-child grave at the Kamloops Residential School, and more being found daily at other schools, no one can deny the truth any longer that the atrocities our people faced under this appalling colonial policy are real [emphasis in original].”4
However, historical records tell a different story, and reveal another old chestnut from the activist playbook: the cherry picking of historical documents in order to make the case that forwards woke activist interests and goals.
Powell River citizen Arthur Richards, who was undemocratically blocked by activists from delegating about Israel Wood Powell at City Hall, penned an open letter published in the Dorchester Review during the winter of 2023, entitled “False Premises: On the ill-informed campaign to rename the former mill town of Powell River.” According to Richards, “...the Tla’amin hired an activist company called Know History Inc. to produce a document — a hit piece would be more accurate — called ‘Israel Wood Powell’s Legacy.’ It is easily found online and easily demonstrated to be false and misleading.”
In the letter, Richards details his historical research into the town’s namesake. He found that “as is usual with these campaigns to change familiar established names, a misinformed minority has captured the municipal council and got the upper hand. The history of goodwill is cast aside in favour of a more aggressive approach. An impatient younger generation is replacing its elders, whose experience already included dialogue and reconciliation.”
The name change controversy stretches back to the City of Powell River's formation of a “Joint Working Group" in 2021, which subsequently led to a city-wide consultation process in 2022. In July of 2022, a report was published which revealed substantial community opposition to the name change. In response, the working group called for a “time of reflection.”
On May 4th, 2023, a local paramedic named Ted Vizzutti, and a group of residents, appeared at Powell River City Hall to protest the proposed name change. Inviting friends and associates to the peaceful City Hall gathering, Vizzutti posted to his personal Facebook profile, “Say no to the name change of Powell River…We, the citizens of Powell River, are coming together to tell elected officials that we are not in favour of a name change for our city. Please come out in support with your signs and voices. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”5
At the protest, According to Vizzutti, counter-protestors approached him and yelled close to his face “We’re going to get you fired!” Vizzutti, who thought he had a democratic right to voice his opinion concerning the renaming of his town, apparently, was wrong. The activists called him an anti-indigenous racist, and were essentially able to get him canceled.
In an email exchange, Frances Widdowson explained that Vizzutti's "union
told him his employer was planning on firing him, and advised him to
take early retirement to avoid a long battle and loss of income. The union should obviously have fought for his off duty freedom of expression rights, but it is likely that it has been captured by woke-ism and so it was reluctant to defend him. Then, when Vizzutti hoped to work part time, the employer said that it reserved the right to reopen the investigative process, which cut off Vizzutti's future employment prospects indefinitely."6
A distinguished 38-year long career of service, saving lives as a Paramedic, destroyed because woke activists claim indigenous feelings have been hurt by a settler with a colonial mindset. It was said about Vizzutti that his “comments and actions have impacted the Tla’amin First Nations community wherein they do not feel safe to call 911.”7
The New Westminster Times, published an op-ed concerning the Powell River name change proposal and the illiberal cancellation of Ted Vizzutti. In a 90 minute phone interview, the former Chief Councilor of the Tla’amin First Nation Maynard Harry is quoted as saying, “the white people in Canada are subhuman because of what they've allowed to happen.”
Harry, expanding on this, then said “white people need to acknowledge their culture is lost,” and that “white settler culture is a lost culture because nothing good defines white people.” And to make sure no one misunderstood what he was trying to convey, he added: "If I insult white people, I don't give a shit.”
The NWT piece also comments on another activist named David Allen Moon, who “has used his Facebook page as a platform for anti-capitalist and pro-Hamas rhetoric.” And another activist who commingles “Palestinian resistance with the Tla’amin’s demand for a name change.”
A good and proper question was raised by the New Westminster Times: “why do Canadian indigenous people use socialist and jihadist talking points when arguing for name changes and monument removals?...One answer is that Canada’s reconciliation agenda may have been hijacked by leftist radicals.”8
I think the NWT is on to something.
Turning to Israel Wood Powell. To give the reader an idea of his character, and how the Indians felt about him, here is an excerpt, which reads like the synopsis of a dramatic adventure film, from an 1884 Department of Indian Affairs Annual Report I received in an email from IRS researcher Nina Green:
“A number of American citizens came across the boundary line to Sumas early last spring, and took an Indian boy, fifteen years old, belonging to the Sumas Band, from his house and lynched him, and left his body hanging to a tree, almost in sight of the Indian village. This outrage, committed by white men, on what the Indians considered an innocent boy, enraged them dreadfully. They assembled in large numbers at Chilliwack with muskets, pistols and ammunition, determined to cross over to the American side and to shoot or hang the first white men they met. I was informed of their intention by the Indian constable at Chilliwack, and two of the chiefs sent their sons to inform me.
“I arrived at the meeting place on the 7th of March. Some of the most determined men among them were much disappointed when I entered their meeting, and said: "You have come now, not to help us, but to prevent us from doing what we have a perfect right to do, that is, to hang and kill, sixty-five Americans" (that was the number of men who came to lynch the boy Louis). I was fortunate enough to be able to dissuade them from their wild intention, for had they crossed the line, not one-half of them would have returned alive, as there are in that part of Washington Territory a most desperate lot of men, who would not wish for better sport than shooting down Indians. I sent them all home, about half satisfied. I met some of their chiefs on the 18th of the same month, and in the meantime I received a letter from the Superintendent, Col. Powell, to be read to them. Eighteen chiefs and forty-seven Indians attended this meeting. When I read the Superintendent's letter of sympathy and counsel to them, they expressed themselves well pleased, and said they always knew him to be their very good friend. They also said they were now most glad that I prevented them from going to revenge the lynching of the boy Louis” (emphasis mine).
According to Richards’ open letter, “In 1873, Dr. Powell started the first free public school in Canada for children of any race. Unfortunately, the school closed after one year because the Province would not fund it adequately.” In that same year, Powell wrote to the Secretary of State in Ottawa saying that he “does not advise the government to directly educate the Indians.” Instead, Powell recommended the government “Leave it to any agents of Christian Society,” but “provide pecuniary aid for education.” During this time, Richards’ noted, there did not appear to be any senior officials, with the exception of Powell, with a desire to educate indigenous children.
From Richard’s open letter:
“With the constant influx of more colonists, Indigenous people had little protection for the future. Educationally they would have been left far behind. If not for the limited education they did receive, the next generation of native children would have grown up barely above the status of slaves, not being able to speak English and unable to read or write. The fundamental point that should be borne in mind is that receiving even some basic education gave them a chance.”
It is largely due to the efforts of Powell that education of indigenous children was made possible. To get a sense of the difficulties in building and operating schools during this period, here is an excerpt from the January 1947 issue of The British Columbia Historical Quarterly, concerning the challenges of setting up a free schooling system:
“Alfred Waddington was appointed Superintendent of Education on June 7, 1865. His was a difficult position, for the Government did not have sufficient money to give adequate support to the school system. The two colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia were united on November 19, 1866, but instead of an improvement in the financial position of the Government the multiplied demands upon the Treasury far exceeded the ability of the Governor to meet them. The free school system of Vancouver Island was continued, but without sufficient funds. Expenses were pared to the utmost limit, but it was impossible to meet them from the amount of money available. Teachers’ salaries were months in arrears.”9
Powell was a staunch advocate for the education of all children and pushed for the building of Day Schools near Indian reserves. However, in 1885, the Kamloops people asked that an Industrial Boarding School be built on their reserve.10 This was not an isolated request; the Indian Commissioner Lenihan had previously reported in 1876 that the “Indians do not appear to appreciate day schools, boarding schools are most popular with them when the children are boarded, clothed, taught free.”11
According to Powell’s 1882 Annual report to Indian Affairs, “there are no Indian schools in the interior, and the establishment of another institution, of the kind referred to (industrial boarding school), at some central place like Kamloops or Nicola, is a necessity, if future appropriations for the educational wants of the Aborigines justify the same.”12 However, as Richard points out, “the Kamloops school was built at the urging of Chief Clexlixqen, not Dr. Powell. The few Boarding Schools that existed along the B.C. coast had previously been started as Missions, mainly for orphan and outcast children, before Dr. Powell’s time.”
Some important background on the impetus of KIRS is provided in the following excerpt from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry on Chief Louis Clexlixqen:
“In 1872 Father Florimond Gendre reported that Louis had raised the money to build a church on the Kamloops Reserve. Louis consistently supported education: he had encouraged Shuswap children to attend the residential school at the Okanagan mission in the late 1860s, assisted the Oblates in establishing a day-school on the Kamloops Reserve in 1880, and initiated the residential school built there in 1890. It was likely his influence that allowed the Oblates to assume control of it in 1893.”13
On July 8th, Frances Widdowson will be travelling to Powell River to give a presentation at the Powell River Public Library, called “Divisive Misinformation: ‘Woke-ism’ and Powell River’s Dictatorial Name Change Process.” Her talk will focus on the relationship between the false unmarked graves hoax at KIRS and the Powell River name change proposal. Arthur Richards is also slated to give a presentation which will cover his historical findings concerning Israel Wood Powell.
The situation is similar to Quesnel City, where professor Widdowson previously travelled in order to address that city council over misinformation being spread about book Grave Error and false unmarked graves claims at KIRS. Like Quesnel, there are a lot of Woke people in Powell River, but also, thankfully, quite a few proud citizens who feel it is an ahistorical and senseless waste of resources to change the name of their beloved city. Many citizens are understandably sentimental over the heritage of Powell River, and consider Israel Wood Powell a hero, an advocate and architect of free universal education, and a friend to the indigenous.
Stay tuned to these pages for more coverage of the proposed Powell River name change as events unfold.
Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read Essential Books on Indigenous Issues and Indian Residential Schools
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James Pew contributed a chapter to the best-selling book Grave Error: How The Media Misled us (And the Truth about Residential Schools). You can read about it here - The Rise of Independent Canadian Researchers
A long-form essay by Dr. M - Fulcrum and Pivot: The New Left Remaking of Toronto School Policy
For evidence of the ideological indoctrination in Canadian education, read Yes, schools are indoctrinating kids! And also, Yes, The University is an Indoctrination Camp!
“Powell River, B.C. paper mill closes indefinitely after more than a century in business,” Global News, Dec. 3, 2021.
The British Columbia Historical Quarterly, January 1947 (pg 39) - bchq_1947_1 (1)(1).pdf(Shared) - Adobe cloud storage
Powell to MacKay, Apr. 14, 1886. Indian Affairs RG 10, vol. 6450, file 882-9, part 2.
Annual Report of the Department of the Interior, 1876, p. 17
Annual Report, Indian Affairs, 1882, p. 263.
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<< . . . activists claim indigenous feelings have been hurt by a settler with a colonial mindset. >>
So it seems that the indigenous “mindset” (or “ways of knowing”) is SACROSANCT and must never be questioned; whereas the “colonial mindset” is to be automatically reviled and repudiated.
Not indigenous? To show your allyship, you must acknowledge and accept that your colonial ways of knowing are invalid and immoral.
But let it be understood that indigenous people respect all things in nature, whether animate or inanimate . . .
Thanks for a very entertaining, enlightening and humorous article that exposes the eccentric foibles of certain adults in the terminal stage of cognitive dementia, compliments of mercury exposure from the former paper mill. Or, alternatively, it may simply be a case of hollow bells ringing the loudest in a frenzy of incendiary gossip about a subject they are too illiterate to understand. As Mark Twain once famously said, "He gossips habitually; he lacks the common wisdom to keep still that deadly enemy of man, his own tongue"
"The best ammunition against lies is the truth, there is no ammunition against gossip. It is like a fog and the clear wind blows it away and the sun burns it off." ~ Ernest Hemingway