Brian Gawiuk Interview – Burning the Buildings

Brian Gawiuk, former Mount Cartier resident, discusses the burning of his family’s farm to clear the land for BC Hydro.

Title Screen: Circular logo on a black backdrop. Logo is an image of four waves turning into wheat on the left end. The title “Stories Beneath the Surface” is circled around the image in capital letters.

Interview with Brian Gawiuk. Brian Gawiuk is a white man with grey hair, glasses, and a plaid button down shirt. He is sitting in a living room on a couch, with clear windows behind him and a view of trees in the background.

Revelstoke Museum and Archives logo in the bottom right hand corner.

Transcript of Narration:

He had to, had to get rid of the building, so um, he had basically he burnt what was remaining, set fire to what we did move and that.

Basically we’ve taken everything out of the building, some of the-the lumber from the buildings we-we removed and-and brought to the new place, and then uh.

I remember going down and uh, because I could start to see smoke coming from the farm, so I headed down and you know the barn was burning what was left uh, the log house I just uh.

Dad, I just arrived on the farm just as Dad was finished getting the-the log house to set fire too.

So I mean, and those were buildings that uh the house, the log house, is what he grew up in and what I spent my early years in, and uh the barn you know he maintained, him and Mom maintained, you know removed snow in the winter.

So you know, I don’t know how he had the strength to basically destroy what was left of that you know.

After spending those years you know it provided shelter for the animals and-and-and now your childhood home to actually burn it to the ground uh and that so, you know I, I don’t know what it took for strength for him to do that, but it must have been you know something.

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