One town, two worlds:

Port Alberni is a 70-minute drive west of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.

The hardscrabble logging and mill town has a population of more than 20,000 people, and roughly 18 per cent of them are Indigenous. The town is cloaked by mountain ranges and the deep blue tidal water of the Somass River runs through the middle.

Local city councillor Chris Alemany knows the drive well. He commutes to and from his job as a computer technician at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo five days a week. In 2016, Alemany did a lot of thinking during those commutes. He was concerned after a friend and former classmate told him that his research for a school project into a former Alberni MP and city councillor revealed a dark past.

Alan Webster Neill’s career as an Alberni city councillor and member of Parliament spanned the two World Wars. He helped champion old age pension and establish Nov. 11 as Remembrance Day. But he also supported the Indian Residential School system as an Indian Agent, was pro-Japanese internment and opposed Asian immigration.

The more Alemany learned about Neill, the more unsettled he said he felt about Port Alberni’s Neill Street — named after him. Alemany said the next move was obvious: change the street name.

“If we were serious about the reconciliation process, [then] we were honouring someone that I strongly believed did not deserve that honour anymore,” Alemany said.

The idea didn’t go over well. When news of Alemany’s plan was leaked for a local radio station story, on social media people said things like, “these people need to get a life, and talk about real issues,” and “waste of time [and] taxpayers money! Move on to something more constructive!”

When the plan went to a vote, at council’s Jan. 23 meeting, Port Alberni resident Cameron Stefiuk argued against both renaming Neill Street and reconciliation. In a video recording of his council presentation, the gist of his argument is that bad history is still history.

“I agree that it’s a dark part of our Canadian history and it will never be forgotten. However, nothing can be done to change our past,” said Stefiuk, who declined to be interviewed for this story.

“I don’t feel that I was personally responsible and have to reconcile for things that I have nothing to do with.”
Councillors subsequently voted 5-2 against renaming Neill Street.

"The clear, clear opposition came towards the issue of renaming and reconciliation specifically," Alemany said.

“There's a lot of history in town. People are really keen on historical objects and people, and they don't want to see it wiped away or dishonoured. If they're not sure that’s not going to happen, then they'll resist it.”

Renaming Neill Street was defeated but reconciliation wasn’t, says Port Alberni Mayor Mike Ruttan, who voted against the plan to consider renaming Neill Street.

“What I was really concerned about was starting the process the way it was proposed — starting to address the need for reconciliation by proposing the solution before involving the entire community in a way that was consultative.”

The issue revealed an undercurrent of racism, Ruttan said.

“It opened the lid to some of the most incredibly racist response that is latent to most communities in Canada,” he said.

“I didn't believe, and I still don't believe that this is remotely helpful or healthy for any community, particularly not this one.”

The renaming issue in Port Alberni is part of a trend of contentious attempts to rename civic properties across Canada in the spirit of reconciliation.

According to University of Sudbury Indigenous Studies assistant professor Brock Pitawanakwat, people such as Alan Webster Neill might be heroes in settler history but they are often villains in First Nations history.

Demographics in small towns also factors into renaming resistance, Pitawanakwat said.

“Younger people in these places often move away and they’re not connected to settler history,” he said.

“Older people often make up the largest demographic in these rural areas, and it’s often older people who cling to that settler history.”

For local Indigenous people, the clash between settler and Indigenous histories is at the epicentre of tension about reconciliation in small towns. Port Alberni is home to the Hupacasath and Tseshaht First Nations. It was also home to the Alberni Indian Residential School.

Cole Sayers, a member of the Hupacasath First Nation and a UVic political science grad, says settler history paved over top of Indigenous history after colonization. Today, he says Indigenous history is challenging settler heritage and heroes — with consequences.

“They want to maintain this heritage — the very little heritage that they have. You’re challenging that and sometimes that's bad because racism comes out,“ Sayers said.

“Racism is like a sleeping bear: you poke it and if it wakes up, it's angry.”

Union of BC Indian Chiefs Grand Chief Stewart Phillip says that the undercurrent of racism in small towns is going to make reconciliation difficult to navigate.

“In small towns, the attitude is: we live here, they live there. That’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it is,” Phillip said.

Unlike Toronto and Vancouver, you don’t often see small towns naming themselves cities of reconciliation, Phillip said. As well, Philip said that in small towns, Indigenous and non-Indigenous people often don't mingle.

“Racism is more deeply entrenched in small towns. It’s more pronounced and our people experience it more personally,” he said.

What does reconciliation look like in small communities? It’s a question that reporters for Discourse Media and CBC Indigenous have been trying to get answers to.

Follow the project here.