HISTORY AND HEALING
Exploring Indigenous culture
A rich variety of Indigenous culture and history on the west coast of Vancouver Island awaits, courtesy of the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations, who had first contact with Europeans in the late 18th century.
Wisqii (wish-key) leads us through old-growth rainforest to a secluded beach at the entrance to Barkley Sound on Vancouver Island. And while it looks untouched by humans, this was once the capital of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation near Bamfield. It’s called Kiixin (kee-hin) and now, almost two decades after it was designated a national historic site, Kiixin Village and Fortress is open to the public.
More than 100 villages like this once dotted B.C.’s southern coastline, but Kiixin is the only one known to still contain standing, traditional architecture.
“There were 12 houses here. It would have been our summer village,” Wisqii says as we follow him into the forest above the high tide line to a man-made archway sprouting greenery.
“We’re standing here in front of the doorway, the archway to the house of Apwinisaht, our oldest chief Tliishin of Kiixin. You can’t really see the other side because it’s been falling down and kind of grown over, but you can see from the size of the doorway that it’s quite a big house.”
Only the corner posts of this longhouse are still visible in the undergrowth. Wisqii points out one is different from the others.
“It says either two things: that they were done in different time periods and also by different artists.”
It’s true; the chief ’s longhouse is mostly gone. So, too, are the tall welcoming figures Wisqii’s ancestors erected in the 19th century to welcome the Makah people of Washington for potlatches. (The figures now welcome visitors to the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria.)
We find the remains of another longhouse belonging to a former whaling chief. Kneeling on the soft forest floor, Wisqii picks up the rib bone of a whale.
“And it smells like whale,” he says with a laugh, explaining that the Huu-ay-aht often depended on whales to survive, especially after a tsunami.
And survive they have. Sitting on a rock, waves rolling in behind him, Wisqii sings and drums about the resilience the Huu-ay-aht have always shown, and how they will overcome the harm of colonization, too.
“I really do believe that we’re gonna come back from it. We’re gonna overcome it … For the first time, there’s somebody talking about it, from the inside. It’s always been people come in and they tell it from their own point of view. But we’re now committing to do this every day, to tell history … because we are very proud of it.”
About 70 kilometres up the coast from Kiixin, 20-year-old Thomas Zarelli is getting ready to tell a bit of his First Nation’s story. Despite his fourth generation Italian surname, Zarelli is a member of the Tla-oqui-aht First Nation in Tofino and a guide with T’ashii Paddle School.
Zarelli steers from the stern of a traditional dugout canoe carved by master carver Joe Martin while eight of us sit in pairs and follow Zarelli’s instructions.
Hand-carved from a single red cedar log, the canoe is surprisingly stable, even in the choppy water between Tofino and Meares Island.
As we paddle hard against the current, Zarelli tells us stories that, like Wisqii’s, involve struggle and pain. He reminds us of residential schools, including the former one at Tin Wis (now a resort operated by the Best Western in Tofino) where members of the Tla-o-quiaht First Nation, including his mother, were sent as children.
“It was a secret for many, many years,” he says of the often brutal treatment children received in residential schools across Canada. “We still have a long healing.”
As we approach Meares Island, the water calms and Zarelli sings his family’s paddle song.
“If we were going into another territory we would sing that song. Sound travels a long way over water so people could identify which family was coming to visit.”
Meares Island is famous not just for its trees — some of the oldest and largest in the world — but for being the focal point of the War in the Woods in Clayoquot Sound in 1993 when MacMillan Bloedel wanted to log the island and environmentalists and First Nations teamed up in opposition.
It’s easy to tell who won that battle. In the soft afternoon light, Meares Island appears solid green. Walking the Big Tree Trail, we admire the 1,000-year-old cedar tree that protesters once linked hands around. Sitting next to a large hemlock, Zarelli sings Nine Times, “a song brought out at a potlatch by our family.”
Suzanne Morphet was a guest of Indigenous Tourism B.C., Lady Rose Marine Services, Pacific Sands Beach Resort and the experiences mentioned above. None of the hosts read or approved of this article before publication.