The Letters of Margaret Butcher: Missionary-Imperialism on the North Pacific Coast

David M. Quiring teaches history at the University of Saskatchewan. He
is the author of CCF Colonialism in Northern Saskatchewan: Battling
Parish Priests, Bootleggers, and Fur Sharks.

During the early decades of the 20th century, the Elizabeth Long
Memorial Home provided residential schooling for Haisla children in the
Kitamaat area of the B.C. north coast. The Women’s Missionary Society
employed Margaret Butcher, a middle-aged English woman, to work at the
school. After a relatively short time, Butcher found herself promoted to
the position of matron. While at the school, from 1916 to 1919, she
found time to write numerous letters to friends and family members.

Mary-Ellen Kelm’s introduction provides an excellent description of
the Haisla people and the English workers who travelled north. A
non-judgmental tone characterizes her opening remarks, leaving the
reader in a receptive frame of mind to move on to the heart of the
book—Butcher’s letters, which provide one woman’s description of
life in the northern coastal environment. Though tedious details about
things like the dreary weather and unreliable mail service fill many of
the letters, interspersed throughout are Butcher’s candid accounts of
her efforts to train Haisla children, and about the Native community and
white settlers that lived nearby. Memorable images include those of the
drudgery required to keep the school operating, epidemic diseases, and
frequent deaths. Butcher found little to celebrate in the Haisla
culture, so convinced she was of the superiority of the British ways
represented by the school. Although she worked for the Women’s
Missionary Society, she seemed more interested in disseminating British
culture than in winning converts to Christianity.

Kelm’s concluding comments contrast sharply with those of her
introduction; gone is the detached tone. Instead she offers a strong
condemnation of Butcher’s attitudes and the residential school system.
While few today would defend assimilative projects, Kelm might have
provided a more nuanced discussion of Butcher’s writings. Much as
Butcher’s letters reveal her devotion to the British world, Kelm fails
to step back from today’s dominant beliefs.