The picture above is George Raley on left, standing with a Bear House Post that he had taken away from Xa’isla People.
The District of Kitimat Council and Mayor had a meeting last night and renaming of Raley and Anderson Street were on the agenda, after many months of talking with Haisla Culture Department and Haisla Elected Council and Elected Chief Councillor Crystal Smith.
The renaming finally went into a vote before the vote begin one Councillor tried to ask for it to be tabled one more time but was denied and went into vote, it did not end on a happy note as they voted no to the name change. There was no reason why they voted no to the name change. CFNR News did try reach out to the Mayor Phil Germuth of why they voted no but he was unavailable.
Content warring below: May be triggering for some people.
The reason of why Haisla Elected Council and the Culture department wanted to change the street names is George Raley and George Anderson were missionaries, and stole artifacts from Xa’isla people and burnt some of them also, and established the Elizabeth Long Memorial Home In Haisla from 1908 till 1941. Anderson also married a Haisla girl aged 12 to 14, she got pregnant and she passed away during the childbirth.
