A nearly 150-year-old Chinese temple in Victoria is asking for the community’s help to win a $50,000 prize through a national competition.
The Tam Kung Temple in Victoria’s Chinatown was built in 1876, and was recently designated a National Historic Site.
Now, the historic temple is asking for the community’s help winning a Canada-wide competition that supports heritage sites across the country.
The Tam Kung Temple is just one of 12 finalists in the “Next Great Save 2025 Competition,” which is run by the National Trust for Canada.
The grand prize for the competition is $50,000 – followed by two runner-up prizes of $10,000 and $5,000.
If the Tam Kung Temple wins the top prize, it says it will use the money to build a “Welcome Reception & Interpretation Centre,” which will introduce visitors to the temple’s history, as well as Victoria’s Chinatown as a whole – which is the oldest Chinatown in Canada and second oldest in all of North America.
History of the temple
The Tam Kung Temple bills itself as Canada’s oldest Chinese temple, and was used for both spiritual and cultural purposes since the 1870s.
In March, when the temple was designated a Canadian National Historic Site, temple board president Nora Butz told CHEK News that the temple served not only as a spiritual centre, but also as a community centre for Chinese immigrations.
“It was a beacon for the Chinese people that came in the 1800s, the ones that had no homes,” she said.
“If they came and said, ‘I’m new here and I have no place to go,’ they could stay.”
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She said newcomers could also use the temple as a mailing address if they didn’t yet have a permanent address, and could send and receive mail from there. Temple keepers would also help people read and write letters if they were illiterate.
“They would come and say, ‘I want to write a letter to my mother in China,’ and dictate it to them, and the temple keeper would write it and send it,” said Butz.
“If there was a letter for them, the temple keeper would read it to them, but they’d also ask them to keep it.”
Just last summer, the temple found piles of these letters dating back to the late 1800s. They’re just some of the many artifacts kept under the care of the temple,
some of which can be found in the slideshow below:on the south side of the Yen Wo Society Building, representing the
Tam Kung Temple and its artifacts, 2024. (Parks Canada / Christian Lieb)cast iron bell, dating to 1887, is the oldest artifact in the Tam Kung Temple, Victoria, British Columbia, 2024. (Parks Canada / Christian Lieb)inside
the Tam Kung Temple, Victoria, British Columbia, 2024. (Parks Canada / Christian Lieb)
“We are honored to be part of this competition,” said Butz in a statement Thursday.
“This funding would allow us to better share our history and traditions with the wider community while preserving the temple for generations to come,” she said. “We encourage everyone to vote daily and help us secure this opportunity.”
source：CHEK News
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