Walking Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park With Its History in Mind

A familiar walk, a name worth understanding

Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park is a place of ordinary city life: river walks, gardens, picnics and time outside. Its name connects those familiar visits to a much longer history. Lheidli T’enneh identifies the people with the meeting of the Nechako and Fraser rivers. The confluence is part of the Nation’s name, not simply a feature on a city map.

The park was renamed in June 2015. The change brought the former village and its people into the name used for a place where Prince George gathers. It also made the word “memorial” part of an everyday invitation to visit.

Sources: 1, 6

The village beneath the park’s history

The park occupies the former Lheidli village site. In September 1913, during the development of the railway townsite, remaining residents were forced out and the village was burned. The lawns and public paths came later. A recreational landscape now occupies a place from which people were displaced.

Ts’unk’ut, the Lheidli T’enneh cemetery, remains here. The Nation’s land-use plan describes it as the original burial ground for people who lived at the confluence and as an active cemetery. It is a continuing connection, not a relic belonging only to a closed chapter.

Those facts give a walk a different pace. The riverfront can be appreciated for its beauty, while the cemetery and interpretation call for time and respect. The same ground holds recreation, remembrance and the presence of a living Nation.

Sources: 5, 6, 4

A place of learning beside the paths

The Exploration Place, within the park, houses Hodul’eh-a: A Place of Learning. The permanent gallery opened on June 21, 2017, following years of work with the Lheidli T’enneh. Chief and Council and the Atsiyan Ink’e ‘Atsoo Elders’ Society contributed to its content, language and design.

The gallery grew from a relationship in which community members shared photographs, documents, oral histories and cultural materials with the museum. The Nation also identifies The Exploration Place as a designated repository through their partnership. There is a direct connection between the public place visitors enter and the people whose histories are held there.

Allow time for the gallery as well as the walk. A label, a photograph or a recorded account can change what you notice when you step outside again. The river and the park are immediately beyond the museum, giving the history a setting that stays with you.

Sources: 3, 2

The story continues in the present tense

The Lheidli T’enneh’s own account describes culture carried through Elders, teachers, artists and young people. That continuing life belongs in the picture alongside the account of 1913. The Nation is part of the present city and region, and its public history offers a starting point for learning beyond a single visit.

Walk the public paths, pause at the interpretation and give the cemetery the quiet it asks for. There is no need to turn the day into a tour of every landmark. The most lasting change may be smaller: hearing the park’s name differently the next time someone suggests meeting there.

Sources: 1, 4