What’s in a costume?: Burnaby Village Museum tackles reconciliation through clothing

Visitors to the Burnaby Village Museum this summer season may notice a few less staff in costume than in previous years, and the museum’s cultural heritage manager says it’s part of furthering a commitment to reconciliation and inclusion.

While the majority of staff and volunteers—the blacksmiths, tinsmiths, steam demonstrators, and anyone whose role at the museum is related to an “experience”—will still wear costumes akin to what settlers in Burnaby in the 1920s would have worn, those who take on more “educational” roles, like tour guides, will not.

Deborah Tuyttens told the Beacon that the museum is actively trying to educate visitors on histories and perspectives that haven’t typically been part of the wider historical record, and sometimes that requires having difficult conversations.

“We often talk about schools—this is what it used to be like growing up in Burnaby and going to school. But what’s not part of that conversation is, ‘well, this group of people went to school this way, but there was a whole other group of people going to residential schools’,” she said.

“And I don’t think it’s appropriate to have a conversation about residential schools with a costumed interpreter, you’d want to have somebody in neutral clothing to have a conversation about ‘here’s what it was like in Burnaby.’”

Tuytten said history books and curriculums written in the past often leave out the voices and experiences of Indigenous people, along with other minorities—leading to a misconception that diversity is something that just happened in the past couple of years.

In fact, what we now know as Burnaby has always been a diverse place, firstly as the home of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples, as well as to Chinese Canadians, South Asian Canadians, and African Canadians among other groups.

“So we’re trying to do [what] we can and look at the voices that aren’t in the history books and do the research to say what happened specifically here in Burnaby. And yes, everything isn’t pretty. But it needs to be acknowledged,” Tuytten said.

“We’re not saying that we need to erase it and pretend it didn’t happen, or even erase our colonial past. We need to acknowledge, but we also need to provide the space to include other voices in order to move forward and be curious about other people in our community that might not have had the attention in the historical record.”

Tuytten is adamant that the decision to remove some costumes is not focused on “cancelling” a period of history, or pretending that Burnaby’s colonial past didn’t exist. In fact, she says, it’s about expanding our understanding of that past, and providing a neutral, third party voice to explain parts of history that visitors may not be familiar with.

But she notes that in its current form, the Burnaby Village Museum is in fact a colonial organization that has presented a colonial point of view.

“We’re kind of built on a fictional, generic-authentic settler village. So we’re not trying to pretend to be something that existed in the past. … And so we’re not saying to remove or erase history—we’re just saying, in order to be a bit more inclusive with our conversations, we need to look at how we are deploying people in costumes,” Tuytten said.

Tuytten said it’s important for all levels of government and other organizations to do what they can to follow the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action—many of which focus on the importance of educating Canadians on the history of residential schools and other harms done to First Nations communities.

Along with the decision to keep some staff wearing “neutral” clothing, she said Burnaby Village Museum has hired a full time Indigenous educator, established a matriarch’s garden, and is working on a cedar grove that will also be filled with Indigenous plants.

As well as work on Indigenous histories and reconciliation, the museum is working to include diverse voices from other minority groups as well—including a book on the history of Chinese Canadians in Burnaby, and an exhibit on Burnaby residents of South Asian heritage that’s expected to open next year.

The museum opens for its summer season this Saturday, May 7.

Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to Burnaby as “the home of several Coast Salish nations, including the Skwxwú7mesh, the Tsleil-Waututh, and the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm,” but they are not the only Nations with traditional territory here. A more accurate and inclusive way to describe the city would be “the homes of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples”. The article has been updated to reflect that description.