The Current - How canoes and sea otters shore up Haida Gwaii’s culture

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Last month Matt Galloway visited the islands of Haida Gwaii, to hear about a historic agreement that recognizes the Haida Nation’s title over the land. We revisit his conversation with renowned Haida artist Christian White — about preserving and celebrating his nation’s ancient traditions — and hear about the return of sea otters to the archipelago’s ecosystem.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. A few weeks ago, I was fortunate to spend some time on Haida Gwaii. It is a series of islands off the northern coast of British Columbia. And this morning, we're going to revisit some of my conversation with the people who are both preserving and celebrating the history of this place, while at the same time looking toward the future. Driving along a residential street in Old Masset, Haida Gwaii, it's not hard to spot a workshop big enough to house a massive canoe. In the yard around it

there are huge pieces of cedar from trees that must have been hundreds of years old. There's a sign that says please do not share photos of the canoe steaming process on social media at this time. Get a little closer to the shed and you can hear the activity inside. It's all hands on deck this week to get the special canoe ready for a launch which is just a few days away. Okay so yeah it's been a hive of activity for the last several months. My name is Christian White, K'ethyata, H'enodikian. We. Maybe we could go outside here just to be a little quieter. We've got some ads work happening.

Christian White is a renowned Haida artist. He's known for preserving and reviving traditional Haida practices. We head outside to talk where it's quieter, next to a giant cedar stump lying on its side. Tell us what's happening in that shed right now. Well we're coming to the completion of a red cedar canoe carving project that we've been working on for several months. The canoe measures 50 feet long and it's a little over five feet wide. Many hands have worked on the canoe. I have eight students and six apprentices working with me and also my brother Derek who's a master carver himself. I had the vision for this project several years ago and I went to the forest and selected the tree. At first, I was looking at it as a war canoe.

And as I progressed through the project, working with my students, and I said, we don't go to war anymore. And then I thought, what can I call it if it's not a war canoe? And I thought of it, the beloved canoe. So Kluwe Kweas is the name I'm giving the canoe in the Haida language. Kluwe Kweas. How do you go about selecting the tree for a canoe like this? Like over the years it's been very difficult to find suitable trees

cedar to carve a canoe. Over 80% of their forests were cut in the most viable areas and so it makes it very difficult to find the cedars. I've gone into the forests for the past 30 some years looking for cedars for a canoe, for totem poles, for Haida houses, just on my own really. It's very difficult to find these trees, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of trees have been cut down that were probably very suitable for canoe carving. And so I've had to deal with what I could get. We're bringing a new life to the cedar. It was stood as a tree for over 600 years. So before the time Christopher Columbus came into the Western Hemisphere,

it was standing here on Haida Gwaii. And so it stood the test of time through those generations. It was kind of on the edge of a cut block. So it was possible that it could have been taken at any moment. The winds could have taken it down and another tree that had been cut down nearby had shattered into many, many pieces. So this tree, this cedar, come down safely. It's quite a process just to bring it here and then quite a cost. Many of our people can't afford that cost that are involved with getting cedars and then carrying

it out into a project such as a totem pole or a longhouse or a canoe. And the canoes are very special to me. My late father, Morris White, Chief Irensu, he initiated us into canoe carving around 1985. My brothers and I and our friends, we just gathered around him like waves coming in around him and working with him on his dream really to create Haida canoes. It was like a traditional way of learning. He was our elder, even though at that time he was probably just in his mid-50s. But he had the wisdom of decades of his life here on Haida Gwaii. Stories had been passed down through him.

He was a very humble man, but people knew he was a born leader in this way of teaching. What do you think you learned from him? Well, he was the first one to teach me to carve at the young age of maybe 12 years old, my brothers and I. And of course, our sisters were there with us, and we learned his style style of carving but he also taught us to learn our own style within the style. It's something that you can't learn in school. It's something that is passed down from generation to generation. I'd say the responsibility fell upon me to continue his work and to pass the teachings down to the next generation this is the first canoe to be carved in your family in in 31 years yes it's been 31 years

and when i think about it i'm actually at the same age as he was when he carved his last canoe around six he was around 62 years old and you did that with him as well, right? Yes. And it's kind of just a coincidence that he carved his last canoe when he was 62. But, you know, I hope this isn't my last canoe. But one reason there's so few canoes being made nowadays is it's very hard work. Very, very back-breaking work to create one of these canoes, even with some modern tools. My favorite sound, though, is to hear the adzes. All the different adzes the students are wielding and the chisels just slicing

through the wood. That's what I like to hear. It's like music to my ears. slicing through the wood. That's what I like to hear. It's like music to my ears. Can you talk a little bit about how you... I mean, the carving is one thing, but when you get this tree here, the stages that it goes through,

because there are various stages for it to become what we just saw briefly inside the shed. Well, after we get it to the site um and you know we're starting the project and then we have to uh determine like the center of the log we have to roll it around to the the best side because the log isn't perfect it's a part of nature that's growing for hundreds of years so So we roll it around, trying to determine which side is going to be the upside, which side is going to be the downside, where is the center going to be. And of course, when you're dealing with a 50-foot cedar log that's over 5 feet wide,

it's a very heavy piece of wood and could be very dangerous. So we've invented ways to help with that, even though we're basically using leverage to turn the log over. And, you know, of course, we use some modern devices. But, you know, we think about our ancestors. How did they do this in the forest by hand with a minimum amount of crew? But I've heard those stories. And that's something I'd like to do in the future before I get too old is go carve one right in the forest. It's not like nowadays where you could go there with a chainsaw

and cut it down in less than half an hour, or an hour at the most. In those days it would take a day or two, if not longer. And then that's just to cut it down. When you had the shape of it done, what went through your mind? To me, whenever I think about it, really, I'm actually humbled. I'm really actually humbled with what our ancestors did before and how it was so routine for them.

But for us, it's so difficult. But after everything, the dust cleared and everything, and then I start to think, hmm, this is perfect. This is the way it's supposed to be. So I was quite happy, satisfied. How would you describe what the canoes mean to the Haida? Well, you know, it's a symbol. It's a symbol of freedom.

You know, just like a totem pole or one of our traditional houses, it's a symbol of our culture. It's a symbol of pride. Like when I was a kid, really, we didn't really know what being Haida was. We started getting glimpses of it when we were young. When we first seen the first totem pole being raised in 1969 right nearby our house and it was carved by Robert Davidson. And then we saw elders and younger people making regalia and wearing their traditional

regalia and singing the songs. So it was a long time really. What's been developing for the last 55 years as the pride in our culture. I know our people had been made to feel ashamed of who they were for decades, but the Haida's were always very proud and always thought of themselves as equal to anybody in the world and never bowed down to anybody. Now we've come to a position where BC has recognized our title, Tahiti Kauai. This is another symbolic event, really, to show that we are still here, we still have a living culture, and we're passing it down to the next generation.

What do you see? I mean, we're here on this site, and there's young people and kids that are running around and i mean it's it's busy with with the community what do you see as your responsibility to that next generation well you know i've um actually i've been doing this really for 25 years and i was just driven to do it felt like my hands were being guided and it was just like i would have a material in front of me, like a whale bone or argillite or ivory, and I would just be able to just make something out of it, out of metal, out of copper. And it was just something, it's like I was watching myself do it.

I'm not formally educated, but I'm culturally educated. Like I often sat at the tables with the elders and hearing them speak Haida language. I didn't understand much of it. Every once in a while they'd speak English and then I would be able to understand what they're talking about. When the canoe is done, what will it be used for? Well, I want to travel, really.

I'd like to take it on a canoe journey. I've been on many, many canoe journeys over the years, mainly going to our Yacoon River and then going to Heidelberg, Alaska, and then also traveling down the coast of Bella Bella. But now we have a bigger canoe. Maybe we could travel even further south. Well, Sunshine Coast, first of all, and then Puget Sound and then every place in between and maybe even down like our ancestors were known to travel down to California to get abalone shells and then there's stories about where people even going far south is Peru and you know we travel to other places too Hawaii, Japan and so that's all in our histories of our travels.

You know, sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose. You know, I think about that as an adventure. And I always say that, you know, we hear about our ancestors' adventures, but I said we could make our own adventures. You know, our history doesn't stop 150 years ago. It continues with us. And also to travel to our villages around Haida Gwaii that have been unoccupied for 200 years or more.

And so that's one of my dreams too, is to start to raise our monuments in those villages. Many of our people have never been to their ancestral village. Can we go in and see the canoe? Yeah. Okay. So this is my father's first canoe, and we started it back in 1985. In 1989, we took this one to Alaska, Heidelberg, Alaska.

It was the first time I was out on the open water in the canoe. Huge long waves. I was on the canoe for 18 hours. So this is our current canoe here, Kluwe Kweas. And you can see it's a lot larger, a lot bigger log. This tree wasn't perfect, but by the time we're done it'll be perfect. And it's just like a human being, we're only perfect when we're a baby. Then we grow up and we get slowly corrupted by the world. But there's ways to really to heal from that too. And I think this canoe is helping us heal.

I think I've grown a lot during this process. And so it is a healing thing for me. How much more has to be done before it launches? Well, there's going to be a design painted on the canoe, on the front and the back. So we're going to paint until probably four or five in the morning until it's done. And then we have to flip it upright again. And then basically we have to attach the front piece and the, so the bow piece and the stern piece. And that gives it a nice flare in the front. It's huge. How are you going to, how will this be turned over? I'm hoping like a hundred people will come in here and carry it out or more, but I imagine there's going to be a thousand people around. So I think we could, we could do that. Yeah, it's going to be exciting to, you know,

it'll be a way to show our strength and our unity and work, work like a team. It really is an incredible piece. Yeah, when you were out, you've been in these, so what is that like? Well, it's a whole different experience. Of course, you know, these canoes, you're on there with like anywhere from, you know, six to ten other people or even this one's gonna have 20 people on or more. So, and And you're close to the water. You could reach down and touch the water. When you're paddling, you feel the water going by you.

It's just a unique experience. People are used to going on boats with motors on them. All you hear is that drone or the engine. And you're always in a rush to get somewhere. But being on a canoe is a whole different feeling. Like reconnecting to the waters, you know, the ancestors. It's a good feeling. It's a good feeling. Some people might not be able to understand that,

but for me it gives me a good feeling of pride and connection. What do you think it's going to mean? I mean, there's a lot of people who are coming in for this. What will it mean? It's something that we have to do more often, really. You know, I look at my ancestors, and they had villages with dozens, if not a hundred totem poles. And you imagine that each one of those totem poles

had a celebration. There was a feast involved. There was performances involved. There were statements. There was names being passed down. And so that's the same thing we're doing, really. You know, like, I guess in the, you know, non-Native culture, you know,

you'd liken it to the Stanley Cup or, you know, the Grey Cup or something like that, which I have no connection with at all. So, you know, for us, this is it here. My wife and I, my friends, we attend other potlatches on the coast of other First Nations, such as the Hirtuk and the Namgeese. And what gets to me really is the culture, the culture and the ceremony.

It's something we've lost part of it. What we incorporate more and more is the joy of it, the pride, and the young people, they just love it. And then when we're doing this, you know, there's the regalia is being created. Oh, my wife's going to snap. What I'm here for is the boundaries. You've got to canoe the design. Yes.

And then it's lunchtime. That's Candice Weir, Christian's wife. She's reminding him that he still has lots of work to do. And she laughs when someone calls her a force. Am I a force? There's no real work for you. She's helping organize everything. Christian's time, all the helpers buzzing around,

and the festivities around the launch in a few days. I feel like I didn't do a lot today, but lots of work to boss people around. Right now, it's lunchtime. Say anybody else? Candice and Christian's niece, Juliette, is serving it up. She carefully scoops ground beef, tomatoes and lettuce into bags of Doritos. Juliette's family is visiting from Metro Vancouver for the launch. Everyone on Haida Gwaii is talking about this launch.

It is a big event. Saturday will be something. Mm-hmm, and I ordered this, so it's coming. Blue skies. She's just warming up. It'll come. Even the sky is a center, Candice. She was right, of course.

The sky cooperated. Dozens of people carried the finished canoe down to the water just across the road from the workshop and launched it into the ocean. Thank you to Christian White for giving us his time as he was scrambling to get that canoe finished. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons,

but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. We're going to stay on the shores of the Pacific, this time to hear about the return of a resident of these islands

once believed to have been lost forever. Okay, so we can't go and see the sea otters in the ocean, but I'll show you a video of a mom and a pup that one of our tour operators sent to us. So the pup is being carried around by the mom. She's on her back and she's carrying the pup on her front. And it's quite a wee little pup there. Very fluffy. They're very good moms. That's as close as we can get. That's as close as you can get. Lynn Lee is holding up her phone so I can get a sea otter sighting while I'm here on Haida Gwaii. She's the marine ecologist for the Gwaii Hanas National Park Reserve, National Marine Conservation Area Reserve, and Haida Heritage Site. And we're here to talk about sea otters coming back to Haida

Gwaii. It's been made very clear we are not going to actually see any sea otters, but we still head outside to a platform overlooking the ocean for this interview. There's an eagle watching us high in a tree, and boats filled with tourists chugging by. And I start by asking what the sea otter has meant to Haida Gwaii. The sea otter and Haida Gwaii and Haida have existed in this place together for over 10,000 years. And this relationship has developed into a very culturally important relationship for the Haida Nation and a very ecologically important relationship for the place.

And so with the maritime fur trade about 200 years ago, these sea otters were extirpated from which means they were locally made extinct from the waters of Haida Gwaii and so in their absence that relationship has been interrupted for the last 200 years and now amazingly they are naturally returning from the places where they're expanding in other parts of the British Columbia coastline and possibly southeast Alaska as well. So why have the sea otters come back? So sea otters, actually, they had to be reintroduced to many parts of the coast. So the Maritime Fair Trade, for those listeners who don't know, removed sea otters from almost the entire range of sea otters, which is an amazing thing. So right from Alaska down to Mexico. almost the entire range of sea otters, which is an amazing thing.

So right from Alaska down to Mexico. And so there were only about 13 remnant colonies across that whole range left after the maritime fur trade. And interestingly enough, the reason they were reintroduced to many parts of their range is because there was nuclear testing being proposed for the Aleutians. there was nuclear testing being proposed for the Aleutians. And this nuclear testing meant that, and that was in the late 60s and early 70s, and so the sea otters were still existing quite nicely in parts of the Aleutian Islands. And they realized that where they were doing this atomic testing, there were sea otters living in the coastal ecosystem. And they thought, oh, we better move these animals to other places before we do this testing.

And so from that area, these sea otters were moved to various parts of the coast, including British Columbia. So other places as well, California, Washington, Oregon. And in British Columbia, they were reintroduced to the west coast of Vancouver Island near the village of Cayucut. How many are here now and how many are you expecting to see return over time? So currently in the last survey, full survey we did in 2019, we counted 13. Now remember, sea otters are very elusive creatures. So when there are very few of them, if they see or hear a boat coming, they tend to dive. And so that's a minimum number, but we don't think there's more than 20, say. And so it's going to take, even though they have a big reproductive rate, because we're starting

with so few animals, we won't see a lot of sea otters on Haida Gwaii for quite a few decades. Is it a good thing that they're returning? It is a good thing that they're returning. We are restoring balance in the ecosystem, restoring relationships that people had with sea otters. The time frame that they've been gone is a few hundred years, but the time frame in which they have been here and living with people is several thousand years. So we have to remember that it is actually a short interruption. But what is difficult about their return

is that they like to eat the same things that people like to eat. And in the absence of sea otters, the things that we like to eat have become much more common, much more prolific than they were before. And so we know that when sea otters come back, they will change that ecosystem back into a place that will have perhaps less of those things that we also like to eat. Where are they now? We're standing here. We've been watching, keeping an eye out. Well, we're in Skidigit Inlet. You're not likely to see them here. We are not disclosing the locations,

exact locations of the sea otter because we want them to stay safe. I can tell you they're in Guayhanas. We did a survey there in 2019 and we found 13 of them including a mom and pup and so we know that they're slowly returning from other places on the coast as they expand there and what we think is going to happen is it will be decades before we see them expand throughout all of Haida Gwaii. So in those decades, that gives us this chance to have this constructive conversation and innovative dialogue around what do we want to see? How are we going to get there? And we can do that before sea otters come and change the places that people are really finding important now for fishing.

Can I ask you a question about a different kind of otter, which is we are down on the docks and there were signs about a river otter. And we had a conversation with a guy and the sign is terrifying. The sign is like deadly. Be careful. Watch your children. Watch your dogs. What's the deal with the river otters? You think of sea otters, you think of otters, and they're cute. The sign suggested that perhaps there is a darker side to those otters. Otters are very cute.

That is all very true. What people have to remember is they are weasels in the weasel family, so they're mustelids. And mustelids are quite ornery creatures when they want to be. And river otters, often they get confused with sea otters. We have a sea otter reporting line, and we ask people to report when they see sea otters. It's seaotters at hideanation.com. And often we get reports that we ask them to describe what the sea otter was doing and get photographs.

Because river otters, even though they're called river otters, often spend a lot of time in the ocean. And they spend a lot of time swimming around in the coast and then coming up on land and doing their thing on land and going back in the ocean. So they do a lot of foraging in the intertidal, which makes us think they're sea otters because they're in the sea. But these river otters live in rivers and lakes and in the coastal areas, and they're very, very ferocious. So do not underestimate the fuzzy, cute-looking river otter. Duly noted. Thank you very much.

It's really great to talk to you about this. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Matt. Thank you for your interest. Lynn Lee is the marine ecologist for Gwaihanas National Park Reserve, National Marine Conservation Area Reserve, and Haida Heritage Site. If you want to see and hear more from our time on Haida Gwaii, you can head to our website, cbc.ca slash the current. There's a 10-minute television documentary about our trip as well that you can find on the website. Again, go to cbc.ca slash the current. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.