A New Westminster Secondary grad has brought to life a gritty chapter of Vancouver history that will be featured in both a TV documentary and a book this week.
Stevie Wilson, who graduated from NWSS in 2006, is co-producer and writer of Catch the Westbound Train, an award-winning, short-form documentary that airs on the Knowledge Network Thursday, Aug. 14.
The film delves into the history of The Great Depression in Vancouver and the flood of transient, unemployed men that came with it because Vancouver was the only Canadian city “where you could starve to death before you froze to death.”
Wilson’s work on the same subject will also be featured in Vancouver Confidential, a mid-twentieth century social history/anthology that focuses on the lives of common folk in the port city.
Wilson’s chapter (and much of Catch the Westbound Train) centres on the so-called “hobo jungles” that sprang up in Vancouver in the 1930s to house the transient men who poured into the city at that time.
Wilson stumbled on the subject while looking for material for a Vancouver history column she writes for Scout Magazine, a popular food and culture website.
Serendipitously, a friend and documentary filmmaker, Sean Shaul, approached her at around that same time and asked if she had any ideas for a short documentary.
The rest, as they say, is history
The 27-minute Catch the Westbound Train has been well received, earning awards at both the Winnipeg Reel to Real Film Festival and the Canada International Film Festival.
A self-styled “historian masquerading as a writer,” 26-year-old Wilson said she first developed a passion for history at NWSS in Mr. James Robson’s history classes.
“The discussions he encouraged us to have, they were a little bit above and beyond, I think, what the normal curriculum was,” Wilson said. “He just had very high expectations of us, and I think for a lot of us that’s what we needed … He was obviously very passionate about history as well, so that was inspiring to us.”
At UBC, Wilson focused heavily on the Second World War and the Holocaust as well as historiography, the study of history itself.
While she still loves academic research and writing, she admits Catch the Westbound Train and her Scout column have allowed her to explore a side of history and writing that is “more instantly gratifying.”
“It’s a way to engage with people that a lot of academics don’t necessarily get to do,” she said.
Catch the Westbound Train from Prairie Coast Films airs on the Knowledge Network on Aug. 14 at 7 p.m. The film can also be downloaded online at vimeo.com.
Vancouver Confidential from Anvil Press comes out Aug. 15.
