Wendy Poole Park

Wendy Poole Park is a small triangular plot of parkland near the waterfront in the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, British Columbia. The land is at Alexander Street and the Main StreetOverpass, and it was named by the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation for a young aboriginal woman who was murdered nearby in 1989. [Cultural Memory Group (Bold, Castaldi, Knowles, McConnell, Schincariol). "Remembering Women Murdered by Men: Memorials across Canada", Sumach Press, 2006, ISBN:1894549538] The park contains a memorial boulder inscribed with information about Poole.

Wendy Poole

Wendy Poole was a member of the Tsay Keh Dene (english: People of the Mountains) a First Nations group from Northern B.C., near what is now the city of Prince George, British Columbia. She had moved to Vancouver, and was murdered on the second floor of a Downtown Eastside housing coop on Jan. 26/89. Her body was later found in a nearby garbage dumpster. A man arrested in connection with her death was later acquitted and the murder case remains unsolved by police. [Rolfsen, Catherine. "Healing to move on: Native women and youth learn life skills and carving to remember the missing women", "Vancouver Sun",Thursday, August 09, 2007] [ [http://www.missingnativewomen.ca/native3.html Missing Native Women] ]

History of the memorial

A coalition of First Nations, community groups, and individuals from the DTES campaigned, along with Roslyn Cassells, then Party Commissioner of the Green Party of Canada, to name this small waterfront park after Wendy Poole. The proponents of the proposal hoped that the park would bring awareness to the unsolved cases of missing women in the Downtown Eastside, and contribute to a healing process with First Nations people in the city. [MINUTES OF MEETING OF THE VANCOUVER BOARD OF PARKS AND RECREATION, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2000, seen at [http://vancouver.ca/parks/board/2000/001016/minutes.pdf ] ]

The official dedication ceremony was held on February 14, 2001, withrepresentation from Wendy Poole’s family. [MINUTES OF MEETING OF THE VANCOUVER BOARD OF PARKS AND RECREATION, MONDAY, JULY 16, 2001, p6 seen at [http://vancouver.ca/parks/board/2001/010730/minutes.pdf ] ] The February date was picked to coordinate with the Annual DTES Women’s Memorial March held on that date.

The 'Spirit’s Rising Memorial Society' is joining women and youth at risk in a totem carving project, to be displayed in the park. [Cultural Memory Group (Bold, Castaldi, Knowles, McConnell, Schincariol). "The politics of remembering women murdered by men", Canadian Women’s Health Network (CWHN) Magazine, Spring/Summer 2007 Volume 9, Number 3/4]

References