Historical tourism

While there is vague talk about heritage tourism or historical tourism to complement the various eco-tourism development plans, the government has never really put effort into exploring how our heritage could earn the country foreign exchange, let alone committed funds to such a project. But then that is hardly surprising, considering the contempt it has shown for Guyana’s historical buildings and traditional architecture. There is the old New Amsterdam Hospital, for example, which appears to have been plundered of its decorated iron railings − presumably by some predatory scrap-metal dealer − and is now being allowed to moulder into dust (with some serious help from vandals). Do the Ministers of Tourism and Culture care? Not one iota, it seems.

So if they can’t see the point of preserving (and finding some use for) an architectural gem dating from the period of great public building in this country, and weave it into a historical package relating to the nation’s unique architecture and the best known architect ever to have worked in the public sector, then one can only conclude that any talk of heritage tourism is just so much hot air.

Unlike some other places, it is not as if one is going to trip over ruins and ancient structures every time one walks past a palm tree here; which is not to say that the country does not have an ancient history, simply that the material evidence of this is not so easily come by, and imagination is required to make it accessible. It bears repeating, however, that in the first instance government has to do the obvious first, and show a far greater sense of responsibility towards the preservation of our existing built heritage, more particularly the built heritage in public hands.

That said, as is suggested in a letter in our columns today, after that perhaps the authorities should be looking at themes. The one that presents itself first is the sugar industry, which has played such a critical role in the history of this country. We have no factories preserved from the nineteenth century, let alone earlier, although in terms of the human dimension, there are still some logies scattered around. There is the chimney at Chateau Margot, of course, dating not from Dutch times, as is popularly supposed, but from the British period, and there is a photograph in existence of what the factory (complete with chimney) looked like in the nineteenth century.

There is too the remnants of an iron windmill which was restored by some dedicated GuySuCo officials. It was the last survivor of a whole battalion of windmills which used to stand sentry along the West Coast in the early nineteenth century and provided the power for grinding cane. There are also diagrams of these mills extant, giving an idea of what they looked like. After photography came in, there are certainly photos of the workers in the industry, both in the canefields and elsewhere, and there are also a few paintings from the pre-photography period, although these are not so easily come by.

What is amazing is that the largest sugar producer in the anglophone Caribbean does not even have a sugar museum. One would have thought that a government whose party is so closely associated with the industry would have regarded this as of primary importance. One could conceive, for example, of a sugar tour with a museum as its centrepiece, much of it outdoors with reconstructions of logie life, an eighteenth-century horsemill, etc, and trips to estates ending with a visit to a modern sugar factory.

Then there is Guyana’s industrial heritage (most of it bound up with sugar, admittedly) but some of it relating to activities such as boat-building, and South America’s first railway. The iron bridges for the latter were saved from destruction by a previous Minister of Works, Mr Anthony Xavier.

Dutch remains are not that common in Guyana, despite the fact that this was a Dutch colony for slightly longer than it was a British one. However, the archway at Kykoveral still stands, and Fort Zeelandia and the Court of Policy building on Fort Island which have been restored by the National Trust form a natural focal point for an excursion into the Dutch period. There are too the great uprisings, specifically in 1763 and 1823, which with some imagination could be recreated, as much for the benefit of Guyanese themselves as anyone else. There are plenty of examples from abroad, for instance from historical battlefields, where modern techniques have been developed to give visitors images and impressions of what transpired at a given site.

Guyana’s ancient history is the preserve of the Amerindians, and while here again, it is not that accessible, with some thought and work it could be made so. In this instance there is already a museum – the Walter Roth – so there is a foundation in existence for exploring a variety of options.

In fact, there are a hundred and one possibilities for developing historical/heritage tourism. What it needs in the first instance, however, is the will, then the imagination, and then the disposition to work with a range of people and groups outside government, after which there has to be the preparedness to commit funds.  This does not mean to say that government would have to put up all the money; in other places there have been public-private partnerships in developing heritage projects of one kind or another, and while that might not be so easy here, it is nevertheless not impossible. But above all else, the administration has to want to do it, and has to be serious about this kind of tourism.
As indicated above, the evidence to date is that it is not.