How a little museum in Lytton is rising from the ashes

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Twelve months after a fire destroyed the community of Lytton in B.C., Canada's Fraser Canyon, residents and business owners are still waiting to rebuild. With everything destroyed in the fire, Lytton needs to literally rebuild from the ground up.

This is a tiny community, population of 250, but its history is extensive and rich. Indigenous peoples have inhabited these lands for millennia. There are archaeological records that need to be carefully logged before the village is rebuilt.

Then there is a more recent, lesser-known history — Chinese migration to the region.

Gold miners, some of them Chinese migrants, began working in Lytton in the mid-1800s. The migrants set up shops and supply chain operations. Closer to the end of the century, Chinese migrants began working on the railways critical for moving goods across the country and around the world to this day.

Documenting local Chinese history has become a passion project for Lorna Fandrich. She’s a longtime resident who, along with her husband, runs a rafting company in town. But after learning that a property she owned in the village used to be a Chinese temple, she decided to take on a different project – building a museum dedicated to Lytton’s Chinese history.