Editor:
For the past six months or more, I have been part of a committee involved to save May Day - however, I never even been to a May Day event until this year.
The 149th May Day tradition is a community ceremony that has become folklore and something I would consider to be a fundamental right and freedom worthy of its continuation and safeguarded from erosion or loss.
Having attended the free and public Queen’s Park event this year, I have no doubt that it should continue and I advocate that more should be done to safeguard it by all local elected government officials as per the UNESCO instruments on safeguarding culture and folklore.
It is sad that our annual May Day event has become a political issue pandering to the woes of the few, as there are arguments in favour of doing away with the tradition.
Those that wish to destroy what May Day represents speak words such as colonialist, not multicultural, and just outright old fashioned. However, those words must be countered with the love and joy of all children and all people that attend May Day.
It must be countered with the voices of the past, including previous alumni and must be countered with new measures to implement a balance as we all strive for reconciliation with First Nations, especially here on the unceded lands of the Qayqayt First Nation.
While May Day certainly has its roots to Great Britain and potentially Europe as some sort of pagan spring fertility ritual, the New Westminster May Day does not embody paganism per se. The May Pole is not penetrated into the ground as if Mother Earth’s virtues are being taken advantage of and I doubt anybody, the kids or the public, sees the may pole as some sort of phallic symbol like some would have you believe.
Here, in New Westminster, I saw only joy, happiness, togetherness, multiculturalism and much more: community pride and spirit. I do believe that Indigenous voices and culture can be incorporated much more into the May Day festivities in order to recognize whose traditional territory this special place is, and to breathe life into the reconciliation framework that lies before us.
In the 19th century, First Nations gathered on the shores of the Fraser River in canoes, perhaps hundreds of canoes, and they did so to celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday. They held canoe races, and this was again re-enacted in the 1960s at what was billed as “Indian Days,” which attracted tens of thousands of people from all walks of life. And remember, this was some 50 years ago.
The archival footage of past May Day events available online by the New Westminster Museum and Archives reveals that the community pride and spirit of May Days in the 20th century was exceptional - a huge event for all people, all citizens of the community, including, somewhat, Indigenous peoples. The same enthusiasm of the last century was firmly planted on all the faces of the children that attended this years’ May Day event.
I even felt blessed by the spirits of the past, I felt as if my own nine-year old daughter that passed away of natural causes, nearly two decades ago, was also there, in spirit, in joy and in love as I was touched.
It is time that we embrace who we are and celebrate our past, while safeguarding our precious intangible heritage, here in the historic, Royal City of New Westminster. We hold our hands up in thanks and now expect the powers that be, to do the right thing: reconcile.
This two-way street of reconciliation is a process of give and take but, in the end, we all mutually benefit. This is exactly what the May Day celebrations are about. I saw children so happy and enthusiastic to be part of the May Day event, I heard the older students in the band class, I saw Chief Rhonda Larrabee give a traditional and heartfelt welcome. At May Day, I felt a wonderful community spirit and, certainly, May Day wasn’t about racism or politics, it was just something so special, something intangible that you cannot put your hands on it and pick it up to study like a museum object.
Now that I have not only attended, but actually witnessed the May Day events, now that I have seen the dancing and singing, heard and felt the booms of the Hyack 21-gun salute through the anvil battery, I now know why the May Day events have become such a loved and cherished tradition by all those who immerse themselves in this upraising of community pride and spirit.
Let the revels begin.
Troy Hunter, New Westminster
