New light shed on stories of stolen Sto:lo children - The Globe and Mail

25.4.17

New light shed on stories of stolen Sto:lo children - The Globe and Mail: The story is not well-known even among the Sto:lo community, but details are surfacing now thanks to the efforts of Dr. Keith Carlson, a history professor at the University of Saskatchewan.

His continuing research is part of the Canada 150-funded Lost Stories Project based at Concordia University, and will be featured as part of a larger work on the history of abducted Coast Salish children.

"I didn't know anything about it until I was told about the memorial project. It was almost hard to believe. Even my grandfather didn't know about it," says Chief Horne.

Records from the era are scant, but Dr. Carlson discovered some correspondence between colonial officials and a distraught Sto:lo man named Sokolowictz. He was seeking assistance in getting his son back from a Californian miner named George Crum.

"Crum got on a steamboat and left [Fort Hope], and an hour or so later, Sokolowictz couldn't find his son," says Dr. Carlson.