Searching for Serafim: The Life and Legacy of Serafim “Joe” Fortes

Review By Janet Nicol

July 29, 2026

This biographical account of heralded Vancouver lifeguard Serafim “Joe” Fortes (1863-1922) also serves as a powerful meditation on race. Ruby Smith Diaz poses original questions, offers fresh research and delivers valuable insights. She challenges the historical record on several fronts, including a re-claiming of the subject’s first name as Serafim, not Joe as he was informally called by white settlers. Additionally, Diaz rejects the anglicized spelling in favour of the Spanish version as supported by an archival document showing his signature as Serafim Fortes.

Diaz identifies with her subject, “…a fellow Afro Latine in Vancouver, separated only by time.”(p. 13) Her art piece enhances this assertion, the digital collage showing her standing next to Serafim at lyelshn (English Bay).

Barbara Rogers and Lisa Anne Smith, co-authors of Our Friend Joe: The Joe Fortes Story (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2012) are among other historians drawn to the popular lifeguard’s story. As with their research, Diaz is limited to a paucity of facts given Serafim was a life-long bachelor, had no descendants, did not return to his home country and left behind few personal papers. Her search for his authentic voice proves elusive, compelling her to frequently speculate about a life “…altered and even erased to appease settler colonial narratives.” (p. 114)

Archival records from Kairi, an island in the Caribbean also known as Trinidad, indicates Serafim’s father was a farmer. As is the case of Diaz’s parents, his father descended from enslaved Africans and his mother was Latino. Serafim was born free, thirty years after slavery was abolished across the British Empire. At 17, he left his island home to take up employment on a ship bound for Liverpool. He settled in the English seaport for about two years then travelled to Glasgow and joined the crew of the Robert Kerr. The supply ship sailed across the Atlantic, making stops in Panama and South America. During the lengthy voyage, Serafim endured violence at the hand of a ship mate, a chilling incident recorded in the captain’s log book.

On September 6, 1885, the Robert Kerr ran into trouble during a storm along the Pacific coast. Subsequently the vessel was towed into waters near Granville townsite. Serafim went ashore and found work as a bartender in Gastown.

Eventually he set up a tent at Iyelshn (English Bay), in the young city’s downtown West End and volunteered as a lifeguard. In 1901, city council granted him a salary and four years later, he moved into a beachside cottage. Serafim taught three generations of children to swim and saved the lives of more than one hundred people. When he died in 1922, his funeral garnered an unprecedented number of mourners.

Serafim’s life and legacy has endured in tandem with racism against people of colour. Diaz explores this contradiction, partly through her own experiences. Growing up in Edmonton, she gravitated toward the punk scene. Most of her new-found teenage friends were white and some, she discovered, were active members of the Aryan Guard, a white supremacist group. Diaz was accepted nonetheless and didn’t face physical violence.

“Maybe it was because just like Serafim, I was the only Black person in that place at that time,” she writes, “and thus, was seen as not a threat, easy to surveil and control.”(p. 81) In Serafim’s situation, she points out, it helped that he rescued people from death. Who he rescued also mattered. Not included were other Black, Indigenous and Chinese residents. In fact, the author discovered newspaper reports of incidents where Serafim re-enforced discriminatory treatment toward marginalized residents. She explores why this may have been so.

Two Black families lived in Vancouver during Serafim’s lifetime. His friendship with one of them, the Scurry family, was steadfast. Still, outside of work, he appeared to have led a solitary life.

The author makes brief reference to early Sikh immigrants from the Punjab region of India, who like Serafim, had been British subjects. Their comparative experiences residing in the neighbouring Kitsilano community are worth exploring.

Diaz devotes the final chapter to a poem entitled ‘Soliloquy for Serafim.’ Her lyrical lines imagine his life and death in a new light, made possible by a diligent and empathetic inquiry.

Janet Mary Nicol is a freelance writer. Her most recent book, a young adult historical novel entitled A Cause to Fight For (Heritage House Publishing, Victoria, 2026), chronicles a young girl’s fight for women’s suffrage in World War 1-era BC. Nicol blogs at http://janetnicol.wordpress.com