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PHOTO CREDIT Mack McColl |
The Yukusem Heritage Society culture camp has been constructed 15 km south of Alert Bay, B.C. by sea. The people of the First Nations around the area at the north end of Vancouver Island have been reconnected to nationhood by their management of resources and jurisdiction over certain kinds of development, especially forest practices. The culture camp came about as part of this recovery of jurisdiction in the area, and the project itself is guided by a man with unusually strong connections to the coastal past. Beau Dick was born in 1955 and raised in Kingcome Inlet, B.C. (an inlet flowing deep into the coast) and there he stayed until 1965. Beau lived his first ten years with the extended family including Elders, uncles and aunts, and a few other people who had stuck to the Big House culture of their ancestry. They lived in close personal contact with the pristine surroundings. Kingcome Inlet was a place of stories and hard work and the conduct of various crafts, and hard work, and masks and dances, and hard work, and long meditative sessions in carving cedar. Also these times were spent fully immersed in speaking Kwakwalla, the language of the nation. Beau sat quietly in amongst the carvers, his father, grandfather, and uncles, and listened to histories, legends, laws, jurisdiction, in Kwakwala, and he learned the way things came to pass and some of what is to come. When Beau was 10 years old the family sent him to Vancouver to live with an aunt and uncle so he could get some serious book learning. He was agog by what he saw and when he saw it, for the full impact of the 1960s generation was in process and the impact of this move to Vancouver was something he describes as culture shock. Upon his return to the Pacific Northwest the family was separated from Kingcome Inlet and Beau settled into Alert Bay, B.C., a bifurcated townsite half First Nation and half non-reserve residences on Cormorant Island. The nearest town that people readily recognize is Port Hardy. The nearest city is Campbell River found halfway down Vancouver Island on the Inside Passage. Beau is a hereditary Homatsa chief (Homatsa is a secret society), a carver of world renown, and a gifted story teller. He told a story about the oolican fish from the Pacific Coast of Canada. This is an important fish that First Nation people use for many purposes, dietary and often for healing. The oil is something they call 'gweena' and those of coastal bloodlines often have a bottle of the oolican grease sitting around. "My grandmother inherited the right to first harvest of the oolican up Kingcome Inlet," said Beau one afternoon in the centre of the culture camp on Yukusem. "My great grandfather had inherited the right to 'first fish' from this river because his great grandfather brought the oolican to Kingcome Inlet." Brought the oolican to Kingcome? Beau's forefather took two canoes and went out to sea and paddled all the way to Bella Coola in the north. Once there he obtained oolican fry and eggs which he carried in his second canoe, and he returned south (and east up the distinctively remote Kingcome Inlet) to seed the river with oolican. That gives the family rights to the first fruits in perpetuity, and that is a valuable asset. The claim is recognized and the large copper in his possession is the physical statement. The culture camp on Yukusem has taken the form of new constructions of Big House-style cedar buildings and a couple of tipis and other facilities. About two kilometres north of the camp is the canoe project, a couple hundred meters above sea level. Experienced tree faller Jerry Higginson fell a couple of cedar trees in August 2008 to launch the Yukusem canoe project. Those logs will be transformed into canoes over the next summer. Other cultural practices within the Yukusem camp include bark harvesting from cedar trees and Chilkat Blanket weaving; others make jewellery and others make cedar bark hats, or mats, or necklaces. The culture camp is accessed by Johnstone Strait and situated on Deep Bay. Hanson Island is a important preserve under the auspices of the Yukusem Heritage Society, all four square kilometres (except 70 hectares belonging to Jim Pattison on the other side at Dong Chong Bay, a useful clue as to the value of the place). The island also has Orcalab with world class Orca research facilities that are visited by marine biology students from around the world. Orcalab leases their presence on the island from Yukusem Heritage Society since 2004. Back on the Deep Bay side, kayakers use camping facilities in summer season during the whale watching tours. The orca swim through and eat tonnes salmon from late spring to mid autumn, and these visitors will continue to be invited into the culture camp to witness the flourish of activities hearkening to the past and sustaining people in the present. A good contact for further information is the Umista Cultural Society in Alert Bay, B.C., ask for Andrea Sanborn 1-800-690-8222 or access her through www.umista.ca
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