There’s a meeting in Kamloops this Saturday to talk about a proposed Chinese-Canadian Museum in British Columbia.

It’ll be in the Mountain Room at Thompson Rivers University between 1:30 PM and 3:00 PM – one of four meetings being held across the province.

Minister of State for Trade George Chow says one such meeting was recently held in Vancouver.

“So we want to have an organization that not only has artifacts but even has verbal stories of their families,” he said. “And one of their experiences was how the Chinese interacted with Indigenous population back in those days because they were very close living together.”

He noted that Kamloops has a very rich history of Chinese-Canadians, as a lot of people who worked on the Canadian Pacific Railroad settled in the Tournament Capital.

“I think after the building of the Canadian Pacific railroad, a lot of the earlier Chinese pioneers they settled in Kamloops,” Chow added. “It has a rich history and it had a China Town as well.”

“Of course, China Town is no longer there.”

He adds they want to set up this museum for both the people of BC and visitors to the province.

Back in September 2018, the government said they were working with the City of Vancouver to have Vancouver’s Chinatown designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

In that same announcement, the province also committed to establishing a Chinese Canadian Museum.