We woke up bright and early in Qualicum, had a great breakfast, and set off for Victoria. Once we had arrived, we were informed that we had been upgraded to the Gold Floor, a very special treat! Unfortunately we did not spend much time there upon our arrival as we had a tour at the Royal Canadian Museum to catch. On the tour we learned massive amounts of different facts and information about First Nations’ traditions and customs and other Canadian history. Here is a summary of what I learned.

    Thousands of years ago, the First Nations’ of Canada came up with low tech but ingenious ways of making their lives easier. These days we would think of a fishing lure as simple, but the definition of technology is something that makes someone’s life not as challenging or difficult. Most of the First Nations’ inventions were therefore technology, for it helped in fishing, as the tribes in the costal area of BC are all sea-going peoples. One of the things was: a large comb like stick with sharp pieces of bone for each of the combs, they would use this stick to impale small fish more easily than one spear. They also invented many different kinds of lures and traps similar in design to a crab trap. The lures were interesting because the First Nations’ didn’t use rods to fish, they mostly used spears, so they would use a lure to bring fish to the surface of the water and then it would be easier to spear the fish.

    We also learned about immigration and how racist other nationalities were to the Chinese immigrants. One example we saw was how the government made it more and more difficult for Chinese immigrants to come into Canada and for them to live in the country. They first took steps to stop Chinese immigration in the late 1870’s denying them fundamental rights and making immigration increasingly difficult. They also applied a head tax, stating that each person would have to pay a “head tax” of $50 just because they were Chinese. Later that sum was raised to $500 per person. Then they introduced the Chinese Immigration Act, virtually prohibiting immigration from China. This act was put into place in the year of 1923.

    After our tour we went to the hotel, ate some dinner, and then walked back to the Museum to see two IMAX shows. One on junk in space and the other on the Monarch Butterfly. I found the show on the butterfly very interesting because it said that the Monarch Butterfly makes the longest migration south for the winter of any other insect in the world. I was very impressed. Tomorrow we are going on a tour of Chinatown, which I am very excited for.