On Kwikwetlem territory, a new vision for Riverview
The Riverview Lands, on the slope above the Coquitlam River, were known as a storied place.
Settlers will remember the area most for its mental health facility, which the province began work on in 1904. It had an extensive garden and was near the Colony Farm, where patient labourers once produced up to 700 tonnes of crops and 20,000 gallons of milk per year.
Chief Ed Hall of the Kwikwetlem First Nation says his mother, now 75, has a lot of memories of the Riverview community from a convenience store she used to visit to the grounds she explored with her friends.
But for the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm people, their relationship with the site dwarfs colonization by about 9,000 years. Before the site became part of the City of Coquitlam, they knew it as a lush spot for food, medicine, ceremony and, due to its high elevation, a refuge during floods and raids by other communities, said Hall.
After the Riverview Hospital officially closed in 2012, the province and Kwikwetlem First Nation, with help from the public, worked on envisioning the site’s future.
Some major announcements for the site came last month: a new name in hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓, the downriver dialect of the Salishan language Halkomelem, and some land returned to the nation’s hands after more than a century.