A spot, situated along the banks of the Fraser River, holds a tremendous amount of history to the past, present, and future people of Maple Ridge.
Last year we celebrated, with quite the fanfare, our 150 years since becoming a municipality. That act of a group of early settlers signing our Letters Patent to become a municipality happened on this very spot.
John McIver’s farm hosted the signing of this act of incorporation, as well as subsequent meetings.
That land continued to be the McIver family farm for John McIver who passed the property to his son John Alexander McIver.
In May of 1925, John A. was approached Thomas Lawrie, a local golf enthusiast, with a request to lease some of his property for the first golf course in Maple Ridge.
The Maple Ridge Golf and Country Club committee was formed and an agreement was reached to lease 32, and later 35 acres of the 52-acre McIver farm, to the golf course.
On Labour Day of 1925, the Maple Ridge Golf Course was opened.
The golf course continued to lease the land from the McIver family until 1978, when the City of Maple Ridge purchased the property from Georgena Gwendolyn McIver, John Alexander’s widow.
While the settler history of the site is so important to many, the longest and deepest history of the site is of the Katzie First Nation, past, present, and future.
The Katzie have lived on, farmed on, and buried their beloved ancestors on that very ridge for thousands and thousands of years.
This piece of land is very important to the Katzie First Nation and people, being so close to the long and heavily populated village centre of Cxwi't, and for
having known ancestral burials.
There are many important archaeological and historical spaces around the large municipality of Maple Ridge, but few, if any, are as deep and meaningful to so many of us.
Whether the land is a village site, sacred ancestral burial ground, early settler farm, golf course, or whatever the future holds, the most important thing is that none of these uses is forgotten or ignored.
Our history is under every step we take, in every building we walk through, and every tree we enjoy the shade under.
The past is present at that scenic ridge looking over the Fraser River, and always will be.
– Shea Henry is the executive director of the Maple Ridge Museum & Archives
