Ditidaht Community School students have created a hard-cover book filled with illustrations, photography, poetry and musings about their home and their elders. Copies of the 25-page book, called Letters to Our Elders, were distributed to Ditidaht elders at a community lunch served in the school gym on June 22.
Hundreds, if not a thousand or more people, gathered at Harbour Quay this morning to take part in a large-scale celebration hosted by Tseshaht First Nation and the City of Port Alberni. The National Indigenous People’s Day celebration in Port Alberni featured the re-awakening of Tseshaht’s Wolf Ritual Beach, something the First Nation says they were prevented from doing for more than a century.
As rain poured down on hup̓icatḥ hitinquis (Opitsaht Beach), Leah Morgan lifted her arms to the sky and looked up. Unfazed by the cold, damp air, she inhaled deeply with her eyes closed. A gentle smile emerged across her face.
Led by Coastal Bliss Studio Manager Heidi McPherson, Morgan participated in a Summer Solstice National Indigenous Peoples Day yoga class on Meares Island.
Deep under the ocean’s surface off the west coast of Vancouver Island lies a mountain range of around 50 underwater volcanoes – measuring from 1,000 to 3,000 metres high.
These seamounts, as they’re more accurately named, are here for the same reasons there are earthquakes and tsunamis along British Columbia’s coast, said Cherisse Du Preez, head of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s (DFO) deep-sea ecology program.
“We have tectonic activity that is very active and very close to shore,” she said. “It’s like the Rocky Mountains down there.”
As Wayne David walked across the stage during the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council (NTC) Graduation Ceremony he took a bow. The crowd gathered at the Alberni District Secondary School (ADSS) whistled and cheered for the 58-year-old man who had just graduated with an adult high school diploma.
For David, the accomplishment was a way to show his community he’s “endeavouring to become a better person.”
“It’s a legitimate way to prove that [I’m] serious with [my] education,” he said.
Two white fiberglass canoes made in the Nuu-chah-nulth dugout style quietly slipped into the Somass River on the morning of June 17, to the cheers of crowds gathered on the riverside. The 36-foot canoes were commissioned by the NTC’s Usma Nuu-chah-nulth Family and Child Services program to help children and youth in care connect with their cultures in a hands-on way.
Tseshaht people welcomed Usma staff to Paper Mill Dam that morning to lead the blessing ceremony from their traditional territory.
At the beginning of the school year, Grayson Joseph moved from the remote community of Kyuquot to the city of Port Alberni with his mother, Irene.
It was a stark transition for the teenager, who went from a tiny school where everyone knew his name to the Alberni District Secondary School (ADSS).
“I thought I wouldn’t like it and that I wouldn’t want to be here,” he said. “I was scared. It was a big school, so I wanted to go back.”
Joseph pined for the place he had always known as home and struggled to engage with his classes.
By the time Kyle Harry aged out of foster care at 19, he was full of resentment towards the system that oversaw his upbringing since infancy.
“I’m still angry. I didn’t like Usma,” said Harry. “But I’m glad where I come from, from Ehattesaht.”
He recalls living in 12-15 different homes in Ahousaht, Kyuquot, Campbell River and Port Alberni over his childhood.
Island Health says it works to involve patients in decisions regarding their care, but a Tseshaht member recently had to fight through institutional barriers while her niece stayed at the West Coast General Hospital.
Rosa Ross, who has suffered from asthma since infancy, went to the Port Alberni hospital on June 3 with breathing problems. She was brought by Gloria Ross, Rosa’s aunt who also serves as her home care provider.