The North Island: chapter two

Alert Bay is on Cormorant Island and the population now is predominantly First Nations. At one time the mix was different; we know a woman of Chinese descent who was born and brought up in Alert Bay. We were told the Chinese community "drifted away".

Our purpose in going to Cormorant Island was to visit U'mista, the cultural centre of the Namgis nation. Any time we have an opportunity to visit an aboriginal community we like to go with a native guide because it is too easy to be innocently rude by breaking the unknown rules of etiquette. On this occasion we went with K'odi Nelson with Sea Wolf Adventures and it was well worth it. We spent about 4 hours with K'odi and learned so much more than if we had stumbled around on our own as we saw other people doing. For instance: in the cemetery are buried chiefs from many groups because there was a hospital on the island: burying the dead is not a traditional practice but was instilled by the Anglican Church; the memorial totems are not "restored" but are meant to return to the earth as they decay and fall apart.

Fascinating, was the juxtaposition of the derelict St Michael's Residential School adjacent to the U'mista Cultural Centre which holds the "Potlatch Collection" of masks (no photos allowed) which were confiscated in 1922 and disbursed to collectors and museums around the world. Ironically, last summer the collection was on exchange with a museum in Dresden, Germany, so tourists to U'mista were faced with beautiful Dresden China instead of masks, and tourists to Dresden wanting to see the china, got the masks instead. Funny really.

St Michaels Residential School

K'odi's father was a student at St. Mike's and that experience impacted the family deeply. One Christmas when K'odi's grandfather came to pick up his son for a visit home in Kingcome Inlet, he was told the boy had been moved to Port Alberni even though he was still at St. Mike's. They did not see each other for another four years. It's still hard for us to accept that the residential school system went on for 70 years and was a deliberate attempt to destroy native culture. It's a concept foreign to our lauded Canadian Mosaic and not our finest national hour. Apparently the model was hatched in New Zealand and came to Canada via the US. Sad.

Inside The Big House of the Namgis people.

The Namgis are working hard to relearn and restore their cultural history and K'odi teaches in the cultural school in Port Hardy. Potlatches are held again, no longer illegal, and we were fortunate to be able to go inside The Big House which holds up to 1200 people for one of these events. It was very interesting to get some insight into the hierarchy and class system in the First Nations. and to discover that a potlatch will probably cost a host family $30,000.00 in food and gifts for everyone who attends.

It was a dark and chilly day, but fascinating.

The North Island; chapter one

We were persuaded that Saskatchewan in June wasn't the best season for a prairie experience so decided to make a long delayed excursion to the north end of Vancouver Island, which is actually a lot more west of here than north. We'd never been past Campbell River and  have wavered between "why would we" and "we should". I booked a B&B in Port McNeil back in March and for various good reasons we almost cancelled this trip a couple of times but kept coming back to it.
We stopped in Sayward on the way 'up'. The only thing I'd ever heard about it was during a rain-induced flood a few years ago and there's not much more to say. Like many of the north island communities, it's in a lovely location but is not exactly thriving. Ups and downs in the resource industries, fisheries and forestry, which used to make these places prosperous, have been mostly down for a dozen years. We had tea at the Cable House Cafe, made from 26 tons of recycled logging cable dragged out of the forest and welded to a steel frame. It's rustic and interesting with a new enthusiastic lessee but we wonder how long she can last with no custom except the odd traveller who ventures off the highway.

On we went another couple of hours, it's 5-6 hours actual driving time from Victoria to Port McNeil, to our reservation at At Water's Edge. And it was, with ferries, cruise ships and 7 eagles zooming past regularly. Our room was pretty cramped and basic but the location was superb. We had taken our propane campfire with us and enjoyed a nightcap on the beach each evening despite it being unexpectedly chilly.

Day one we went to Port Hardy and it rained. The various people we met were overly cheerful and enthusiastic about the town while we were depressed by it. We expected PH to be a bustling centre and it is not. Not only has it lost virtually everything due to the fishery collapse, it suffers from being too spread out (IMHO). Downtown Port Hardy, the sport fishery hotels, the BC Ferries terminal to Prince Rupert, and the beautiful Storey's Beach are not close together making it unlikely that the various players work together. Later, once we got used to no people and the road to ourselves we decided our first impression was culture shock because we are used to "cute" tourist destinations. Every visitor we met was from Europe (England, Belgium, Germany, France) looking for a wilderness experience and anxious to see bears and whales. I lie, there were groups of American sports fishers as well but not at our B&B.

On our way back to Port McNeil, we sidestepped down a winding fjord road to Port Alice for a look-see. It's tiny and isolated but seemed to have a better sense of itself. Our Irish house-exchanger from last year spent time working in the mill in Port Alice, yonks ago. Talk about culture shock from just outside Dublin to Port Alice.

Chapter two takes us to Alert Bay...