11.11.11 ~ Lest We Forget

In Flanders Fields
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

MyWorld Tuesday ~ Potlatching

If you are reading this blog from most recent backwards you might want to go back two posts to fully appreciate this post. 

Smiles Carolyn

 Chiefs waiting for the procession of chiefs to begin at the potlatch.

After the raising of the totem pole everyone is invited to come to the potlatch where the business is carried out.  The carvers will be "paid",  adoptions will be held, and any other business that requires witnessing.  For those who stay for the potlatch there will also be payment for witnessing. 

 I was serving at the feast which lasted six hours, so my pictures were catch-as-catch-can.   This chief is wearing a Chilcat blanket with an eagle headdress.  The spiny things sticking out of the headdress are sealion whiskers and it is where eagle down is placed when the chiefs do the welcome dance.  If you get eagle down on you it will bring you luck.  This is also an eagle chief in Skidegate. There has been animosity between the two eagle clans and Chief Wiigaanad made it his business to make peace between the two at this potlatch.  Traditionally, each village would have one eagle chief and one raven chief however after the smallpox devastated the Haida villages in the 1860's the remaining individuals where brought to either Skidegate in the south end or Old Masset at the north end of the Islands so now there are often multiple eagle or raven chiefs in the villages.  I am sorry I can not spell his name so I will not try!

Each chief is announced and takes their place at the head table in order of importance to the hosting chief.

 Ladies-held-in-High-Esteem, Chiefs and Guests are welcomed to the feast by an opening prayer and dancing which is presented by Haida of all ages.  The large standing box at centre back and the smaller one to the right are cedar drums.

 Several dance groups accepted their invitations to come and dance for Chief Wiigaanad.  These are the Vancouver Rainbow dancers.

 The regalia at the potlatches is more beautiful each time I attend.  This photo I did not use the flash so it is digitally enhanced which is why it is grainy.  This is a very elaborate design and the only thing I recognize is the dogfish which is the small fish in the design.

 As I mentioned I served at the potlatch.  There were over six hundred people present and two people served each table.  This is my table, absolutely dead centre of the head table.  You are asked to bring your own dishes and cutlery to a potlatch however there are paper plates if you forget or are a visitor. 

 Potlatches consist of singing, dancing, speeches and eating in no particular order lasting upwards of eight hours.  This was the dancing of a new carved mask.  It is a dogfish.  A dogfish is a type of shark.

 Potlatches are times when adoptions are held, it could be a non Haida who has married a Haida, it may be someone who has contributed to the well being of the Haida Nation i.e. David Suzuki or the well being of the Island community i.e. a nurse or a doctor.  Once the new adoptees are given their Haida name which they must pronounce three times in public they must dance their name.  That is what is happening here.

 This is the Chiefs' Welcome dance.

 Finally it was time to eat.  When you sit down at your table it is usually around 3 or 4 p.m. there are always nibblies on the tables, things like "gow" (herring roe on kelp) and before you go "eewwwuu" it is quite delicious and one of my favourites, crunchy and a little salty, dried seaweed which we eat like potato chips, dried halibut and smoked salmon.  Then everyone is served a fish chowder made with halibut, salmon and prawns or a venison stew around 6 p.m.

And then the main course is served around 8 p.m.  This is all from the waters of Haida Gwaii.  If you  don't like seafood there is more venison stew! 

Salmon, smoked salmon, halibut, prawns, black cod, octopus, dungeness crab legs, crab cakes and gow.

 After supper there are more speeches...this is the Mayor of Vancouver, Gregor Robertson and his wife Amy presenting Chief Wigaanad with a basket she wove.

 Clan song...  

 New masks must be danced to bring life to them....

 I do not know who this is supposed to be....it is a woman as there is a labaret in the mouth and she has an extraordinary number of breasts!

 Chief Wigaanad spent a lot of time thanking others, now was the time for him and Cindy to accept the gratitude of his people...it was very emotional.

 As I mentioned in the previous post, "coppers" are a form of currency for chiefs along the coast.  Both to give and to recieve a copper is a huge honour.  Here Sid is honouring his Uncle who named him to be chief rather than his older brother.  In all, Chief Wigaanad gave away three coppers. 

 And like everything else, they must be danced!  Heaven help you if you lose something at a potlatch and have to retrieve it from the master of ceremonies because you will have to dance it when you retrieve it!

This is the "blanket dance" for Matt, the nurse who was hurt at the pole raising earlier in the day.  The drums beat, the singers sing and you dance your money to the blanket....$2,000 was raised in five minutes!

An update on Matt, his injuries included a broken shoulder/collar bone, broken wrist, three broken ribs and a punctured lung.  He spent three days in Vancouver and is now recovering at his home in Queen Charlotte.  It will take four to six months for his injuries to mend and for him to be back to work.  Beside the money collected the night of the potlatch a $10,000 Bingo was held with the proceeds going to Matt and his family.  Matt has been very humble and Syd and Cindy visit him weekly.  Unlike elsewhere in the world there is no ill will and no law suits!

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My World Tuesday ~ Potlatching

This weekend the Skidegate Gidins will host a pole raising and potlatch to honour their new chief.

Potlatch, from the Chinook word(a common trading language of the Northwest coast indigeneous peoples) means "to give away" or "a gift" and was a social gathering by a hereditary chief or family in their house(longhouse) to establish or uphold his/their status position in society and to redistribute wealth. In a culture where history is passed on in an oral tradition potlatches were mainly winter cermonies to mark a significant event such as a son's marriage, the passing of a chief, the birth of a child or the installation of a new chief.  Potlatches are distinguished from feasts in that guests are invited to a potlatch to share food and receive gifts or payment for witnessing the event. Potlatches were also the venue in which ownership to economic and ceremonial privileges was asserted, displayed, and formally transferred to heirs.

This beautiful pole, which was commissioned by Chief Syd Crosby from Master carver Tim Boyko will be raised outside of Sydney's home in Skidegate.  (In older times it would have been raised in front of the clan longhouse.)  Following the pole raising in which everyone is welcome to help raise the pole the potlatch will be held.  The story of the pole will be told and the carver will be honoured and paid along with his apprentices.

The top figure on Syd's pole is an eagle and the post with the two rings on it represents the two potlatches that Sydney has/will host.  There are old totem poles with many rings representing many potlatches.  The photo below from BC Archives shows a memorial pole to a chief who in his life time hosted 10 potlatches.

The potlatch was seen by the church and the government as "the ritualistic act of giving away nearly all of one’s hard-earned possessions as a sign that the indigenous people were ‘unstable’".  Yet the potlatch was the First Nations primary connection to their culture and the redistribution of wealth among their people.  Your wealth was determined by how much you gave away not by how much you had!   In 1880 an amendment was made to the Indian Act of Canada that banned the potlatch and proclaimed that:

 "Every Indian or other person who engages in or assists in celebrating the Indian festival known as the “Potlatch” or in the Indian dance known as the “Tamanawas” is guilty of a misdemeanor, and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than six nor less than two months in any gaol or other place of confinement; and every Indian or persons who encourages… an Indian to get up such a festival… shall be liable to the same punishment."

This Amendment to the Indian Act was meant to assimilate the First Nations people into the European culture however without the support of many of the Indian Agents it was a hard law to uphold.  Some First Nations willing let the potlatch go however those like the Haida and the Kwakwakaʼwakw continued to practice the potlatch however in a much simpler form.  The Anti-Potlatch ban was repealed in Canada in 1951 and the potlatch has become an important part of the resurgance of the Northwest culture.  It is full of song, dance, regalia, food and pride and I will post lots of pictures next week!  

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My World Tuesday ~ the wild southwest coast

I am back on Haida Gwaii after six weeks in Victoria, British Columbia doing training and housesitting.  I have been to Victoria several times but only in the area of the Inner Harbour, the area the tourists visit.  I knew of places like Esquimalt, Metchosin, Sooke and Port Renfrew but had never experienced them.  What amazed me the most about the Greater Victoria area was their public transit system that lets you get to some pretty wild places for a mere $2.50 bus ride.  One of these places was East Sooke Regional Park located on the extreme southwest tip of Vancouver Island and a beautiful 30 minute drive/ride from Victoria.

East Sooke Regional Park is the largest park in the Capital Regional District of Victoria covering 1422 hectares(3512 acres) of westcoast wilderness.  There are over 50 km(30 miles) of trails through old homestead orchards(above) and farmland(below), dry bald moutain tops(didn't make it) with panoramic views and wild west coast trails(what this post is about!) that includes 10 km(6 miles) of permanently protected virgin coastline.

A friend and I entered the park at the old Aylard Farm homestead in search of the T'Sou-kes(pronounced Sooke) petroglyphs.  We thought we had walked the whole ten kms of rugged coastline however if you notice on the map above we barely made a dent in the trail system(our route is marked in red)! It sure felt like 10 kms!

The vistas were breathtaking!

Isolated anchorage at Campbell Cove

It has been a cool spring but some flowers were in bloom.

The climbs were not always easy but the payoff was worth it...

Sometimes you got a surprise

 and always a great view such as this one at Creyke Point

There are lots of beautiful pocket beaches(high tide) with crystal clear water,

air plants like "old man's beard" and the red barked Arbutus trees,

wind swept spruce and douglas fir

and amazing geology everywhere you looked.

Rock sculpted by water.

Art created by nature!

Ring necked seal petroglyph "bruised" into the rock at Alldridge Point which was designated a Provincal Heritage site in 1927.  There was a second petroglyph but I could not find it!  These were "bruised" into the rock by the Coast Salish (the T'Sou-kes, prounounced Sooke) thousands of years ago and was a technique unique to the Strait of Juan du Fuca.

The power of mother nature was evident every where.  Some of these stunted coastal pines were 300 years old!

The view across the Strait of Juan du Fuca at the Olympic Mountains of Washington State.

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My World Tuesday ~ Make sure you want the answer

Having coffee just after sunrise from the deck of the cabin yesterday.

So we have a good friend who is a building contractor and is building a home a couple of kilometers down the road and beach from us.  As you know we are very proud of what we have accomplished on the Dune Cabin so far.  We invite Phred and his family over for supper and to show off what we have done.  As we walk out to the building site, which he likes there is silence, a long silence!  I don't have to look at his face, I know what he is thinking..."what the heck are they doing!"

Let me put this in context.  We all know what happens when people build homes on cliffs overlooking the ocean, or up the side of mountains or too close to the water.... Mother Nature is the great equalizer!

The prevailing weather for these islands is out of the southeast, the winds that come with this weather are warm, wet and feasome strong.  From October through March "southeasters" can be an almost daily experience with sustained winds anywhere from 80 to 110 kph.  You can lean into the winds and not fall over!

The cabin has been built on the edge of the dune along the tree line.  The site and cabin face directly into the southeast but is set back into the trees...just barely.  It is sitting on pads and posts on and in the sand and has a loft overhanging the four foot front deck.  The ability of the wind to get under the cabin and the "kiting effect" caused by the loft over the deck CAN (but may not) put the cabin at risk of no longer being where we built it!  So we are taking a break from the cabin building for bit while we anchor it more securely and are building the wood shed.

Despite not wanting to hear what Phred had to say I personally am very grateful for his input..I really like terra firma! 

The wood shed

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