MAKING THE CASE FOR HOWE SOUND
Pauline Le Bel, author of The Whale in the Door: Protecting Howe Sound, explains to Brett Josef Grubisic how she came to appreciate, on a much deeper level, the splendours and magic of the fiord.
Q Your book’s title conveys a lot about your outlook. Can you explain it, please?
A It’s a Squamish Nation legend. Mink, a trickster, invites all the animals to his potlatch on Gambier Island. Whale comes last, launches himself into the door of the longhouse, traps everyone inside, forcing them to talk to each other. Today, after a century of destructive industrial activity, the whales are returning to this spectacular fiord. People are talking to one another as the threat of re-industrialization looms. I was informed by countless conversations with scientists, Indigenous elders, Indigenous storytellers, industrialists, politicians, educators and environmentalists.
Q Your book relates your own journey to “search out different ways of orienting ourselves in landscape.” What’s changed for you between now and the journey’s beginning?
A In the beginning, I was a passive admirer of Howe Sound. I enjoyed the occasional hike to The Chief, and a paddle in my kayak. But I was a tourist, unaware of the rich geological and cultural significance here. In my journey, I searched for data, for stories, for meaning, for models of how we might live in a mutually enhancing relationship with the sound. I was learning how to belong to Atl’Kitsem, the Squamish name for Howe Sound. I came to appreciate that the history of Mount Garibaldi, the Squamish River Estuary, salmon and cedar, and the history of the Squamish Nation is also my history, and it shapes and guides who I am and how I live.
Q You quote a book by Martin Robin that says “the worship of growth is an enduring theme” in B.C. history. He made that claim in the early 1970s, when Vancouver’s population barely reached one million. Your account also describes a “legacy of industrial misuse,” a “flood of re-industrialization” and “development fever” in the Howe Sound region. How do you remain hopeful about the prospect of positive change?
A I find hope by engaging with those who actively promote the well-being of Howe Sound: Squamish Nation elders reclaiming their culture; citizen scientists protecting marine life, Howe Sound forums creating a vision for the future. People are waking up to the truth that we are only as healthy as the land is healthy. And I’m inspired by the legend of Chíchiyuy — the original Squamish name for The Lions.
Q You refer as well to Robin Kimmerer’s notion: “We have chosen the policies we live by. We can choose again.” What steps do you think we as a society need in order to be able to “choose again” more wisely?
A First step is to admit our utter dependence on the wisdom of the ocean, the forests, the salmon, which have maintained themselves and their relationships for millennia. We are the new kids on the block. Step two is to keep learning. Whale in the Door is a journey that I took for all those who want to learn about the hidden and not-so-hidden treasures of Howe Sound, the magnificent glass sponge reefs, the history of Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships, as well as the gritty details of fracking, liquefied fracked gas cooling and transporting. When we know the full story, when we see our place in it, we can choose more wisely.