Chinese-Canadian History at the Manitoba Museum

The Manitoba Museum is no stranger to cameras in our collection. We care for 103 of them, to be exact, ranging from the old tripod box cameras to some early digital cameras. But what was offered to us this year was very different from anything I had seen.

It was a 1930s Devin Tri-Color camera, made to take colour photographs in an era when artistic and journalistic black-and-white pictures dominated. Our newest camera donation became even more intriguing when I learned it was used in Winnipeg to take a very special picture.

The camera works by actually shooting three simultaneous black-and-white large negatives through three different filters (red, green, and blue), in different chambers. Additionally, inside the chambers are two reflective filters that allowed light through and reflected light to another chamber. As you can see, this makes for an oddly-shaped, heavy, unwieldly tank of a camera, one that could only be mounted on a tripod. But it worked!

In the hands of a professional, the results could be astonishing.

Our particular Devin Tri-Color camera was used to take a picture of the royal visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1939. It was then printed in the Winnipeg Free Press as a colour image, the first time in North America that a news event picture was printed in colour on the following day.

The picture shows the King and Queen with the Strathcona Horse escort on Main Street just north of Portage Avenue. The picture was taken at 11:05 am on Wednesday May 24, 1939, by Maurice Lyall who worked for Brigden’s of Winnipeg. His negatives were made into enlarged positives which were then processed by employees at the Winnipeg Free Press. They were printed in the newspaper in colour, a mere 18 hours after the photograph was taken.

David McMillan, retired professor of Photography and the History of Photography at the School of Arts at the University of Manitoba, purchased the camera from Brigden’s around 1975, and he donated it to the Museum in 2023.

But what did the printed Free Press picture look like? Archives usually only keep black-and-white microfilm or digital copies of old newspapers, so the colour image would have been lost in this transfer process. Luckily the Manitoba Museum has a big collection of keepsakes from the 1939 royal visit, and I remembered having seen some scrapbooks as part of that collection. Sure enough, one of scrapbooks held a clipping of that original May 25 newspaper print, in the original colour.

So the Museum now has both the original camera and an original newspaper print of the picture the camera took. Together at last!

To celebrate Islamic History Month, I thought I would share this recent beautiful donation we have received at the Museum. This Persian carpet was made in the city of Naeen, Iran, likely in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Naeen workshops are known for making intricately designed carpets that feature a light-coloured background, often using blue as a contrasting colour. The carpets are woven and knotted on a cotton thread foundation with wool fibres, highlighted with light silk accents. 

Last year the Rempel-Ong family donated the “Head Tax” Certificate of Yee Chung Yen, a distant relative. The family and Museum staff have been able to piece together some parts of his personal history. 

Yee Chung Yen (1895-1982), later known as Henry Yee, was born in Longgang, Shenzhen District, China, and immigrated to Canada in 1917. He was forced to pay a $500 “Head Tax” to enter the country, part of a racist Canadian policy to restrict Chinese immigration. By the time the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed back in 1885, over 15,000 Chinese labourers had come to Canada to work on this difficult, nation-building project. After the work was done, restrictions were put in place to severely limit Chinese immigration. The “Head Tax” was implemented from 1885 until 1923, and was then replaced by the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred all Chinese immigration until 1947. In 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for these discriminatory laws and the hardship they created for Chinese Canadians.  

Despite the burdens of the Head Tax and Chinese Exclusion Act, Yee Chung Yen persevered. By 1923 he was working at the Subway Café at 250 Osborne St in Winnipeg, which was managed by a Mr. Yee Too. Yee Chung Yen later owned Yee’s Café in Portage la Prairie in the 1950s. The Chinese Exclusion Act had severe consequences on his personal life. Yee Chung Yen was married in China before he arrived in Canada in 1917, and the couple had two children, but Yen would never see his family again.  From 1923 to 1947 his wife and children were barred from entering the country because of the Exclusion Act, Yen was never able to return to China, and they didn’t reunite afterwards.  

Yen was instrumental in helping Mr. Don Wing Ong settle in Portage la Prairie in the 1950s. Refugees from mainland Communist China, Don and his wife Kwan (Anne) and their son Bill made it to Hong Kong, and would eventually all live and work in Winnipeg. Bill graduated from medical school at the University of Manitoba and became a well-respected doctor in the city.  When Yee Chung Yen became ill and then died in 1982, Don paid some of the medical bills and the funeral expenses. Don quietly visited the grave of Yee Chung Yen at Brookside Cemetery every year until Don’s own passing in 2019.

The story and images of Yen Chung Yee will soon be featured in the Winnipeg Gallery digital kiosk.

Along with pictures and documents related to Yen, the Rempel-Ong donation includes many items that recount the story of the Ong family as they immigrated and settled in Canada.

We hope to feature their story on video soon. 

When the Ukrainian Canadian Legion Branch 141 building closed on Selkirk Avenue at the end of March 2022, Vladimir Putin’s military invasion of Ukraine was a month old. I visited the Legion building and was shown the flag of Branch 141, and I was struck by the power of the symbols, given the current conflict.

Though this flag has its origins among Canadian veterans from the Second World War, history has come around to give it new symbolic power. 

The golden Tryzub currently used as a symbol of Ukrainian independence has a much deeper history. It is based on symbols over 1000 years old that appeared on coins minted for Volodymyr the Great of Kyiv in 980 CE. The Tryzub was adapted for use in the coat of arms of the Ukrainian National Republic in 1918, after the fall of the Russian Empire during the First World War. When Bolshevik forces took over the country in 1920, the Tryzub was replaced by Soviet symbology, most notably the hammer and sickle. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic existed from 1920 until 1991. 

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine once again declared its independence, and the Tryzub was instituted as part of the “small coat of arms” in 1992. It has continued as a symbol of independence for 30 years. 

 Today, during the war between Ukraine and Russia, the Tryzub is recognized by many as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to aggression and invasion. Seeing it joined with the maple leaf on the Ukrainian Canadian Veterans flag suggests new symbolic associations, such as the current support of Ukraine’s war efforts by the Canadian government, as well as Ukrainian Canadian heritage in Canada.   

 It’s important to note that national symbols often get hijacked by nationalist groups, far right elements, and other extremists for their own purposes. Symbols are open to interpretation, but at the same time act as a focus for emotions.

After the Second World War, hundreds of branches of the Royal Canadian Legion were established across Canada where veterans of the war could gather and socialize. These branches became important community hubs of activity, from wedding socials to charitable fundraising, to having a beer with a buddy.  

The Ukrainian Canadian Veterans Branch 141 sold its building on Selkirk Avenue this last March, and though the Branch lives on, the building and its 70 years of social activity is history. I was able to visit the Legion branch as it was closing, and Ron Wachniak was kind enough to show me around and offer a few items for the Manitoba Museum to preserve and exhibit. 

He was also an amateur astronomer and constructed his own telescope; he formed a literary and theatrical society, and organized musical recitals; he organized and served on the local school board for 37 years; he was an assistant to the local doctor, providing a type of vaccine injection to locals during the 1918 Influenza pandemic; he was an electrician and fine carpenter; and he was renowned for owning a vast library. Evidently the only thing that didn’t interest him was farming, but he nevertheless cleared land, harvested crops, and received his full homestead grant.  

The racism William Beal experienced in the United States denied him his chance of becoming a medical doctor. Though he formed close friendships in the Big Woody district, he was the only Black man in the area, and experienced racism there as well. 

In the early 1900s the Canadian government actively prevented immigration of Black people to Canada, through misinformation campaigns, bribery of officials, and arbitrary requirements not asked of white immigrants. In 1911, 200 Black farmers from Oklahoma were finally able to enter Manitoba at Emerson, after a rigorous and delayed inspection. It’s not known what hurdles Beal faced when entering Manitoba back in 1906, but after he settled in Big Woody district, he was there to stay, and contributed so much to the local community. He passed away in 1968 at the age of 94. 

Billy: The Life and Photography of William S. A. Beal, was published in 1988 by Leigh Hambly and Rob Barrows, a former Manitoba Museum photographer who grew up in the Swan River Valley. It features detailed research on Beal’s life and many of his photographs.