Length: 60 minutes
How To Watch: Streamed LIVE on our Instagram and Facebook pages.
NOTE: This walking tour is a strictly LIVE EVENT and will not be available for viewing once it is completed.
Kitsilano Walking Tour
In 1908, the first Sikh Gurdwara in North America opened in Kitsilano. Located at 1866 West 2nd Avenue, the gurdwara was the epicentre of religious and social gatherings, as well as political activism and mobilization. The neighbourhood around it would become the hub of the South Asian community over the next six decades.
Join Naveen Girn, Milan Singh and Paneet Singh, hosts of The Nameless Collective podcast, on a walking tour that will retrace the living legacy of this important space for the South Asian community by illustrate the intercultural past of Vancouver, the fight against racial discrimination, and the stories that still resonate today. We will share stories about the formation of the Gurdwara on West 2nd Ave, Bhai Bhag Singh and the burning of medals, Husain Rahim and the Shore Committee, and Harnam Kaur’s journey to Canada. Together we will reimagine what Kits looked like in the early 1900s as the Punjabi community made the area home for decades to come.
About Podcasts & Time Travel
Often we’re forced to relate to the spaces around us through a colonial understanding. We live on streets named after white dudes, in cities named after colonizers, amongst statues immortalizing so-called explorers - so it’s time to change the conversation.
The Nameless Collective brings their flavour of disrupting homogenized, palatable narratives to the Monsoon Festival with three events unpacking the history of the South Asian community on unceded Coast Salish lands.
Explore over one hundred years of the South Asian community’s history and activism through digital walking tours of Kitsilano and the Punjabi Market on August 11th and 18th. Followed by a panel conversation on August 25th with The Nameless Collective podcast hosts Naveen Girn, Milan Singh, and Paneet Singh, and producer Manjot Bains, in which they will discuss motivations, challenges, and adventures in exploring this history.
