Seaside Magazine welcomes your feedback! Send letters to the editor via allison@seasidemagazine.ca or post your comments on our Facebook wall!
Letters may be edited for space and content.
For Brian Case – What a lovely article you submitted. Your gesture to the young couple was so authentic and no matter how they appeared to react, I am sure they gave your short conversation thought afterwards. Great you went on to do research on Kuper Island. Sad to hear about its history. I wonder about the Island now?
Your article made me think that it would be great to have some way of neighbours getting to know and understand neighbours – we all have so much to learn. I thought at one point there was a program like that happening here on the Peninsula, whereby we could get to meet and chat with some of our aboriginal neighbours. Your essay has spurred me on to look into it further.
Nancy Wood
Dear Sue, Allison, and Brian: I’ve lived on our Saanich Peninsula for more than 43 years (since 1977) and I’m absolutely thrilled to – finally – read anything about our First Nations who were here centuries before our white-guys-ancestors invaded this beautiful land.
Thank you SO MUCH Brian Case for your heart-felt Reader Submission!! I completely agree, and I’m relived to finally read this within “Seaside – Your Saanich Peninsula Voice.”
We need to “walk the talk!!” And, you two Sue and Allison have an distinct opportunity to lead by example … I do NOT recall there EVER being a picture of non-whites in Seaside Magazine, which means I usually only brief skim the issue if that … because I deeply believe “only whites” in the pictures and articles does not give justice to many, many others on our Peninsula.
Evelyn J Andrews-Greene CPA CA
Hi Brian – I read your article “A Small Step Toward Reconciliation” and I was moved by your humility, your kindness, your curiosity. What a sweet story of reaching out with compassion and being treated well in return. Your kind intent evidently shined through any awkwardness.
I too am “striving to learn more” about racism in Canada and the U.S. and I’m trying to accept my part in it. We whites have all benefitted from our privilege in some ways and a good small first step is simply acknowledging that fact.
Thank you for your example of how big a “small step” can be.
Patrice Palmerino
Knowing how much painful work needs to be done not only for reconciliation but perhaps more importantly first for truth telling between Indigenous and settler populations, I was glad to see the article in the August 2020 issue of Seaside Magazine. Like the author, I am not sure interrupting a family dinner is the way to go, but we seem to have too few “ways to go” right now.
For the record, there was a Residential School on Penelakut Island, formerly called Kuper Island, but it was not operated by the Anglican Church of Canada. The author might be getting it confused with St. Michael’s Residential School at Alert Bay on Cormorant Island, which was Anglican run. The school on Penelakut was Roman Catholic.
There is quite a good book by Sylvia Olsen based on recollections of members of Tsartlip Indigenous peoples forced to attend the Residential School on Penelakut. The book is titled No Time to Say Goodbye. My granddaughter alerted me to the book and it is readily available.
Karen Fast
Thank you for this article and to Brian for sharing his story and experience.
It made me wonder about Seaside Magazine overall, and your vision for inclusivity of Indigenous people. Maybe have a local Peninsula Indigenous writer have a monthly column.
How can you weave in increased awareness and presence?
I would be very pleased to see this. I suggest it is a Must, as Brian does, long overdue. Let us start now.
Rosanne Beuthin
