History and Chess

We drive past the Gur Sikh Temple every time we go to 7 Oaks mall where Ron walks if it's raining. The first Sikhs had arrived in the Fraser Valley in 1905, from Punjab in India. This heritage Sikh Temple, opened on Feb. 1912, is the oldest surviving example of the temples which formed the religious, social and political centre of pioneer Canadian Sikh communities. It was built on a one acre property on a prominent hill adjacent to the mill at Mill Lake where about fifty or so Sikh men worked. These men and others who worked on the farms in the area used to carry local timber donated by the Tretheway family’s Abbotsford Lumber Company on their backs up the hill from Mill Lake to the Temple site. Architecturally, it is an adaptation of traditional Sikh forms, to Canadian conditions which nevertheless embodies the fundamental beliefs of Sikhs and their early experience as immigrants in Canada. It is 2 stories and has 2 soldiers on horseback outside to the right.
Ron watches the locals play crib in the Mall, even got in 2 games one day. Players arrive with a round cylinder containing the board and men, and there are usually 3 -4 games going in the afternoons in the food court.