Dwayne Mazereeuw describes a terrifying hour in churning waves near Vargas Island. He and his wife Elisa Kasha had traveled to Tofino for a quick get-away, the first since their children were born. They boarded the Leviathan II, a whale watching tour boat on Oct. 25. The boat was hit by a rogue wave, tossing 27 people into the frigid waters.
They saw the boat’s life raft before it was inflated. It took several minutes for it to inflate and for some of the survivors to board it. From there the flare was deployed; and then it took at least another half hour for the first rescue boat to arrive.
“We knew there was a chance that nobody would come, but we kept hope, thinking that someone would notice… there was no radio contact from the boat, and then the flare went up, so that gave us hope,” said Mazereeuw.
The couple clung to a life ring with three others for what they believed was more than an hour before they were pulled out of the ocean by Frenchie and Michelle Campbell of Ahousaht. Rescue came not a moment too soon as Mazereeuw and Kasha were suffering the effects of hypothermia and struggled to hang on.
He said there was a huge sense of relief when the first boat arrived. “We knew there would be more boats coming and we knew we would be okay.”
They had no way of knowing that the incident would create a kind of poetic connection between themselves and the people of Ahousaht, however.
Mazereeuw said most of the survivors weren’t injured badly, but one woman wasn’t doing very well.
The couple was taken to the home of a paramedic where they spent the evening warming up. From there they went to Tofino General Hospital where they were checked over and released late that night.
“We went back to our hotel room where we got very little sleep,” said Mazereeuw. The following morning they made their way back to Comox to catch a flight back home so that they could be with their two small children, ages one and two. “All we could think about were our children,” said Mazereeuw.
Four weeks later Dwayne and Elisa were contemplating ways they could thank their rescuers and the community of Ahousaht. A colleague sent them a news article on Nov. 13 that told the story of a fundraising effort to build a skateboard park in Ahousaht. And, it turns out, Mazereeuw just happens to be a well-known skater in Calgary and, for work, he designs and builds skate parks.
New Line Skate, the company Mazereeuw works for, designs and builds skateboard parks worldwide and has recently built a few for Canadian First Nations communities, including a park in Six Nations and the Ermineskin Youth Park.
Both Mazereeuw and his employer have committed to come back to Ahousaht and assist in whatever way they can to get the community’s skateboard park built.
Ahousaht Deputy Chief Lindsay Campbell says that Ahousaht’s interest in a skateboard park was sparked about 18-months earlier when Beth Luchies, Child & Youth Mental Health Councillor at the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, brought in people to provide skate clinics to Ahousaht’s youth.
Luchies says that when the first paved road in Ahousaht’s new subdivision was finished, she brought in Grant Schilling from an organization called Get on Board, a non-profit organization that uses board sports (skate/surf/snow) to help develop social skills, self-confidence and goal-setting in youth.
Get on Board brought in Landyachtz and, together, donated more than 30 boards to the children of Ahousaht. In addition, they delivered a boarding clinic and helped some of the youth build their own boards.
Boarding became very popular among the youth in Ahousaht; so much so, that people driving their vehicles up to the new subdivision had to be patient with all the children boarding on the only paved road in the village. It became apparent that building a skate park was the next step.
Landyachts donated $10,000 of the $40,000 needed to build a new skate park. Ahousaht hopes to match the $10,000 donation, leaving $20,000 to be raised.
On Nov. 13, just over two weeks after the accident, Schilling launched an online fundraising drive through the website Indiegogo. The page is titled Ahousaht First Nations Skateboard Park Project, and Schilling set a goal of $20,000 to be raised within 60 days, starting Nov. 13.
A week after the story broke in the news, the donations hit $18,330. In addition, Mazereeuw says that his Facebook message box is exploding with offers to help, not only with cash donations but also with donations of expertise, labor and building materials.
“It’s going to take me awhile, but I’ll have to sort through all those messages,” he said.
Mazereeuw has also launched a Facebook community page called ‘Help build a skatepark for the community that saved our lives’.
On that page Mazereeuw wrote:
On October 25 Elisa & I were on a whale watching tour off the coast of Tofino when the boat was hit by a large wave and capsized. We were left hanging onto one lifesaver with 3 other people for the better part of an hour. Hypothermia had almost consumed us when a water taxi from the nearby Ahousaht First Nations Village came to our rescue. Had they been much longer we would not have made it. The only thing that we could think about while out in the water was what would happen to our two young children if we didn't make it back. Of the 27 people on board that boat, 6 people lost their lives that day. In the weeks since this happened we have been trying to figure out how to thank all those involved in the rescue efforts. We recently found out about an outreach group that has been fundraising to build a skatepark in the Ahousaht Village to help youth deal with the remoteness of their location.
Please help us thank the community that saved 21 lives that day by supporting this project:https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ahousaht-first-nations-skateboard-pa…
Mazereeuw expects construction of the skate park to begin next spring. New Line Skateparks, the company Mazereeuw works for, will be making its own donation to the park. It is not clear what the donation will be, said Mazereeuw, given all the other donations that are coming in, but it will be something significant. Mazereeuw and his wife Elisa will also make personal donations to the project.
