Firewood CMTs an Anthropological Oddity

In the days prior to the Industrial Revolution First Nations built canoes to travel the extensive waterways of the Pacific coast. Each dugout canoe was manufactured out of a single cedar tree and these dugout war canoes were designed for ocean voyages of long duration.

 Sometimes during these journeys canoeists ran afoul of the weather. The water on the Inside Passage is a reasonably constant 6 or 7 degrees Celsius but the weather varies and rainfall is a potential threat all year long, especially from October to March. Dealing with these wet conditions called for planning, which included the invention of the 'firewood CMT,' a form of culturally modified tree (CMT) found on remote islands and inlets of the Pacific Coast of Canada.

 "Knowledge of the history of forest use is crucial for understanding the development of forests, which in turn helps to understand how societies react to forest development," said Rikard Andersson, Faculty of Forest Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. "Culturally modified trees (CMTs), recorded in the western U.S. (and Canada), northern Scandinavia, and south-eastern Australia, are features that can be dated precisely, and they bear witness to unique events of human activity."

 David Garrick is a Canadian anthropologist with specific expertise in CMTs in west coast rainforests. "These artefacts define the First Nations communities in a practical way. They had camps all over the place, often at the mouth of a river. If they were taking a three-day voyage by canoe and it started raining they would pull out of the water, but how would you start a fire?"

David Garrick and his son Aki gaze at Johnstone Strait

 An essential CMT would be found ashore where they could and often did make land and find the firewood CMT, each site containing a dry source of wood. The travelers would find a small cavern dug above the roots inside a massive cedar tree trunk. "They would peel shreds of the dry cedar found inside the hollowed trunk and they would ignite a fire inside the tree."

 These firewood CMTs were commonplace, "There's one found at every encampment." Garrick has studied these peculiar modifications from Banks Island all the way to Kitkatla. He and others have found abundant evidence of a kindling source that provided instant fire to travelers. For the past three decades David Garrick concentrated on the study of humans interacting in forests  on the Pacific Coast.

 He found a perfect place to do CMT research on Hanson Island, about 15 km south west of Alert Bay, B.C.. He set up the Earth Embassy in the heights of the 4 sq. km. island and he worked under the auspices of the Yukusem Heritage Society (composed of four First Nations from the Broughton Archipelago and Johnstone Strait).

 "If you keep the ecosystem intact it becomes a living laboratory and a living museum, and a living classroom." For further study, "We have a post-secondary learning opportunities in the area. We have trails into all kinds of nooks and crannies on Hanson Island."

 Garrick's laboratory on Hanson Island has been a welcome presence in the First Nations of coastal B.C. because his research provides a good history lesson about cedar usage in the culture and economy of the people. For instance a 'core-popped' cedar tree looks like a traumatic injury to those who pass by, but core-popping was no problem to First Nations, instead, it was a marker of time, "What happened to the cedar tree core was caused by a memorable event like a potlatch."

 First Nation forest use went into a state of chaos for a period after contact with Europeans and the anthropology is specific about describing the trauma, "After epidemics reduced the population of Indigenous people, you see the sickness of the people reflected in the cedar peelings. Suddenly there are one-tenth the number of people available to peel cedar tree bark or cultivate and harvest other plants in the cedar groves."

 Garrick's work will continue on Hanson Island where he equipped others to teach everyone from small groups of First Nation students to the First Nation CMT researchers who identify the evidence of occupation and prior use in traditional territories. He maintained beautiful gardens at the Earth Embassy and he had members of the multi-nation Society trained to cut and maintains trails to the instructive cedar groves that will stand in perpetuity on Hanson Island.

David Garrick and Mack McColl cross Hanson Island summer 2008

Westbank First Nation's Leap of Faith

Economic development of Westbank

Chris Derickson spoke on behalf of the Westbank First Nation (WFN) at the First Nations Safety Conference in Nanaimo, mid-October, 2018, Derickson, a WFN elected councilor, lawyer, and community planner

"Building WFN has been done through trial and error," he says. The path toward First Nation self-sufficiency could be made no other way, considering Westbank First Nation's progress has been ground-breaking within Canada.

"At first we over-built, and there wasn't 'horizon' planning. We were learning about moving away from government under the Indian Act. There is a way out. For us it was a leap of faith."

He knows the WFN way surely isn't for everybody, he says, "Lateral violence, nobody is above it. It happens despite other challenges. It is our reality that in 1963 our members wanted something different." Derickson says WFN is one of the seven Okanagan Nations, "five reserves, three on the west side of Okanagan Lake."

Today there are 10,000 non-member residents on Westbank property. WFN's 800-plus members have built roads, businesses, malls, "Our youth are accustomed to paved roads and street lights," something those youth often need to explain to kids from other First Nation communities.

"We are looked at as an economic success, and the question is, what drives the success? It is a system of government that undergirds our development, a 5-member council and 200 employees. We have 35 laws to guide development, plus policies and procedures to implement those laws, and a budget of $45 million per year."

The WFN separated from Okanagan Indian Band with 40 members to form their own Band out of entrepreneurial spirit, willingness to try something new, Derickson says, "By 1980s several businesses were operating," and in the late 1980s the Hall Inquiry had been called to sort out an extraordinary amount of in-house turmoil. There was in-fighting, and division, even lawsuits.

"Lateral violence is a learned behavior, it's got a history. Hall said there would be no criminal proceedings, but also said the WFN of the 1980s and 1990s was laboring under an inept form of government."

Derickson says it would be 15 more years of tumultuous meetings between members, lawyers, the federal government and membership votes. By 2004 they had achieved a bilateral agreement with Canada that protected the reserve properties and released WFN from the Indian Act to self-government and a particularly impressive economic development path.

"We are the fastest growing community in B.C., we have a $2 billion assessed value, and a healthy, prosperous future."

Andrea Alexander took to the podium, and said, "The community commits resources to all, newborns to Elders, Westbank has a great growth curve for these programs. We have an Early Years Program, developmental and parenting skills for WFN families. We are putting resources back into the membership.

"Then we have adolescent and young adult programs that include hunting, trapping, sports (snowboarding and others), golf, and a youth council that helps in guiding programs. The council is composed of 4 boys and 4 girls, ages 15 to 25."

The WFN is dedicated to caring for community members, "We have fun, and influence, we offer our members food programs, travel events, Elder programs, vehicle transportation."

Derickson says, "Decolonization and Reconciliation is a complex issue. In our case, so many parts of the community work together to move forward."  The Leap of Faith is a successful work that continues to progress.

Carpenters also build 'capacity' in Coastal First Nation communities

John McNestry set up the Discovery Community College Mobile Training and Apprenticeship program, and the key word is mobile. These training courses are delivered everywhere from Bella Bella to Tofino to Ahousaht, and Alert Bay. Discovery Community College is taking the courses up and down the B.C. coast to meet a huge demand for skilled building trades people.

The first mobile carpentry course finished in December 2010, and, in the program, “Students are engaged for about 8 months total because we added some elements to the course, including a module on remodeling, drywall installation, and cabinetry-making.” These are additions to the basic carpentry skills and DCC goes even further. 

“We give them the basics in a year-one carpentry curriculum, foundation program, and go much further with training on roofing and siding ,so they can do housing maintenance in the communities.” As it stands, “Right now we have trained over 100 carpenters. Why is demand so high? “They’ve been  in training for carpentry because while the country is in a recession we are seeing continuous building of housing on-reserve. The demand for housing is huge, and the demand for skilled trades to build the housing is immeasurable.

Graduates are coming in numbers like twenty-three in Namgis First Nation, twenty in Ahousaht, eleven in Bella Bella  (plus 17 on second program that has recently commenced), and similar numbers for Opitsaht and Tofino. “I have a huge number of carpenters ready for the job,” says McNestry, “no less than 127 First Nations students.”

The program has an urgent need for funding, “We have to find more money now and any publicity about our success will be helpful. We want to go to the MP, Minister of Indian Affairs, and an island representative in Parliament, “It’s not just for tuition and tools. We have students that need support for rent and food for themselves and their families.”

DCC’s mobile carpentry program may be a raging success indeed, however, “We’ve run out of funds. We have the opportunity to create life-changing and life-affirming career,” and, “The thing is that out of these numbers we will see dozens of red-seal carpenters in communities where there are none today.”

None? That’s appalling, isn’t it? Anybody who has seen a First Nation Pacific Coast carving knows one thing: the people work in wood like nobody’s business. “Carpenters could be apprenticed in their own communities. We want to develop a bunch red-seal carpenters on the coast within First Nation communities.” The goal is to educate within self-sustaining communities where apprentices can find opportunities never before available on-reserve.

“A red seal tradesperson can apprentice people into the trade. We are becoming more First Nation specific to carpentry than any other college.” DCC has three mobile carpentry units. “All the training is done in community. We have double the success rate of programs that see the students coming into Campbell River to the college campus. At home in community they have their support systems, including family, local culture,” and the hope of future autonomy by institutions delivering education and training to their midst.

McNestry says, “It makes sense to deliver it local. There’s a lot of work going on. The whole idea is to make sure missing skill development starts to happen. All the letters I receive from people in Ahousaht speak to more program delivery or this sort.”
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Europeans found  a thriving log and carving culture woven into the societies of the west coast, and wood-working culture remains integral to community life, even though, says McNestry, “They were left out of the surging growth that surrounded themselves. They have no trained people, no red seal trades living on-reserve.” 

The only way into the mainstream economy is to get the red seal certification into First Nations communities, to make apprenticeship a readily available career path. The communities will benefit immensely, “Money that currently leaves the community will stay.” McNestry says it’s a lot of money, “Of a $5 million housing project, 70 percent of the work is done in carpentry. By providing wood-working skills, it’s brings a myriad of benefits. For one thing, wood fibre is out there. Trades people could develop businesses that work in dimensional  cedar and fir.”

DCC has put $2 million put into this mobile training initiative. “The graduates are all heading into their second year apprenticeships. They are graduates of a framing technician’s program and now they need 1,000 hours of employment in the trade to achieve year two.” A red seal carpenter is a four-year apprenticeship and training program.

Carpentry careers can proceed many different ways, and at DCC in Campbell River, “We have a full woodworking and millwork shop, so, when they are ready to advance their skill sets further, we have the programs.”

Mobile training is increasing community-capacity for self-sufficiency in more ways than carpentry. Community Support Worker is another eight-month study program at DCC that is graduating qualified community personnel, and they are also training hands-on in their own community. A CSW program is underway in Namgis First Nation (Alert Bay) a few days away from commencing as spring approaches. 

McNestry says, “The CSW Program is a self-healing program,” and as it is dealing with social issues from infant to elder, including substance abuse, spousal loss, abused women,  at-risk teenagers. “Several months ago we began to realize this may be a healing program for the students. As we found the eight month program proceeding, we found they have internal challenges that the students tend to work out in their studies.”

McNestry believes this aspect to the CSW is going to gain recognition. “Programs deal with every conceivable issue in life, and when you have the history of Residential School suffering and loss of a verbal culture passed down by generations, the healing of the healers is paramount in importance.” McNestry hopes to see a clinical study of the program healing the healers. CSW in Ahousaht will be closely observed and monitored for the program’s propensity for healing the students.

Indigenous recorded history written for all to see

Potlatch business was recorded in images

Before the birth of 'Industrial Nations' in the late 1800s, before the end of the Mercantile Trade and Barter economy as happened in the mid 1800s, before Napoleon freed European Jews from the ghettos in 1802, the people of the North West Coast conducted a thriving economy complete with complex international trade protocols and records.

This complex arrangement must have fascinated close observers who came in to the territory, in the wake of Captain Cook's arrival in 1778, said a carver, one evening amid all the wood chips. They came in ever-increasing numbers and whatever else the new arrivals observed, they soon came to believe this potlatch 'business' had to be stopped dead in its tracks. And this they both said and did.

This potlatch business must have been awful scary to the new arrivals because they took over and made it illegal in 1884 by a Canadian government decree that resulted in the next 50 years dragging 'evidence' into fires and re-educatiing the adherents to the system.

So when they looked at masks and grand images of the Pacific North West coast that evoked such terror and opposition, were they looking at art?

Or was there more to it than meets the eye?

Is it possible they were looking at a written language that they could not begin to understand? Is it possible the new arrivals were looking at the terms and conditions of agreements drawn between governments regarding distribution of nationally- generated wealth?

What if the compendium of so-called 'clan art' found within and on a Hereditary Chief’s Big House was a highly evolved record of economic development and propriety, replete with ‘corporate’ symbols and advanced accounting? Since the potlatch included a highly developed government-to-government based international trade system, then it follows the system must have required elaborate and intricate accounting.

What did the usurping authority (Canadian government) find in potlatch that was so objectionable it had to be utterly destroyed? The international trade of the region comprised a vast complex of economic drivers, including everything from clothing to masks, to mats inlaid with family crests, to hats, also inlaid with crests, to all manner of household products, everything inlaid with intricate crests and art work. Everything was manufactured and traded on an annual basis between more than half-a-dozen nations. Within each nation, autonomous villages had specialties, whether it was canoe manufacture or paddles or fishing apparatus or clothing or jewellry, ad infinitum.

The carver who was speaking, a natural born historian, was quick to agree that nations where rich potlatch culture developed were incidentally the very nations where these elaborate art forms are the most intricate and detailed. These symbols practically bend the mind trying to figure them out.

Look at the last-gasp photographic evidence of the wealth of chiefs, photos containing panoramic images of house fronts, totem poles, bighouse screens, clothing, hats, and masks, so many Clan House Chiefs had these pictures done, found all the way from the northern-most Tlingit Nation to the southern-most Kwakwaka'wakw. They all insisted in having their pictures taken standing amid this vast array of wealth.

Add to this incredible tableau the intricate and absorbing detail of the Chilkat blanket, and add to that the minute detail of several family crests etched perfectly into an ivory spoon. Add to that the intricacy and detail generated in trade-based economics. The potlatch system was essentially an economic engine run by Clan Chiefs who had hereditary jurisdiction over lands, waters, resources (natural, manufactured, and human labour), and all matters of protocol in delivering goods and services.

The potlatch was engineered to be the conduct of trade between nations, says the carver. Potlatch-oriented economics accommodated international relations from the top of the North American Pacific coast, between Haida, Tlingit, Nisga'a, Tsimshian, Gikxsan, Bella Coola, Kwakwaka'wakw, and Nuu Chah Nulth nations, all the way to the bottom of Vancouver Island, and past the strait of Juan de Fuca.

The Coast Salish nation was noticeably absent from the system, a nation thriving in a form of self-sufficiency, and potlatch trading protocols went no further south, but the complex potlatch protocols defied all the usual barriers to trade within the Pacific North West. It was an international operation working throughout several government entities and could only be trusted if economic order was preserved.

This wealth was preserved and fell along the lines of nobles, people of standing, and this wealth and ownership was recorded in forensic detail. These were rich nations led by rich people. The complexities of this formerly immense system are yet to be recovered and understood, the meaning of the written language was extinguished, all of it disappeared except the well-known family crests, which are the only remaining code in the key to potlatch economics.

What this does mean is that a remnant of the former national glory has preserved threads of the 'statements of title' which continue to be understood by a few people who know their family shields. Lest we forget, the potlatch was secretly run by societies blood-loyal to House Chiefs and these societies protected their treasures (recorded the accounts), among other things like protecting borders. A usurping authority designated these societies shamanistic and marked their members for extermination; adding further misery during interceding years about ninety percent of the people in these nations died of disease.

Those who were left had the meaning of paintings, etchings, images, and carvings erased from their minds by a brutal system of residential schools. Adding insult to injury these people are presently denied access to an economic system of their own design, since who was to say theirs was not the prototype design for today’s international trade system in commodities, goods, and services in international trade?

It shall be considered therefore a terrible irony that they can only sit on Indian Reservations observing a close derivative of their creative endeavors governing the world and they are not allowed to participate according to the Indian Act.

Written by Mack McColl

Host of contrasts on the coast

The coast is a host of contrasts and a primary one is cultural. For example, First Nations are people of the Potlatch who express a lot of national heritage in artistic endeavours that are indelibly cultural. The First Nations identify a presence and their communities with iconic art found in dozens of locations up the coast. When you come to see major features in First Nation art you are likely in the midst of a First Nation community.

Tourism travel on the coast leads visitors into adventurous activities like tours of whale and bear-watching that take people to places like Bute Inlet, Toba Inlet, Desolation Sound. And when you go farther north, tours take visitors into the Broughton Archipelago, Knight’s Inlet or Kingcome Inlet, or around the top of Vancouver Island. As a cultural exploration, Vancouver Island is but one of a seemingly countless number of islands, many of which were inhabited, while others were cultivated, and others were used for communal harvest of vegetation or wildlife.

It is surprising how many people lived in places no longer considered for habitation. In some of these places there are communities holding extinction at bay with one or two Band members living in remote locations like Hopetown or Gilford Island. At Kingcome Inlet, very top of the world when you are there, 125 souls keep a solid First Nation footprint on the ground (even though the houses are on stilts).

Victoria is a picturesque city full of art shops and museums often honed in on the First Nation culture of the Pacific Coast, but Victoria is a city. On the opposite side of the prominent Malahat from Victoria and still southerly on Vancouver Island is the city of Duncan, halfway point between Victoria and Nanaimo. Duncan is a great place to see the cultural contrast in full bloom. They call Duncan the City of Totems and there are totem poles set around the city but the main attraction is the Quw'utsun' Cultural and Conference Centre. It’s a re-created Salishan village nestled beside the Cowichan River and a beautiful representation of past and present Cowichan Tribes community.

The north end of Vancouver contains more rugged beauty enhanced by temperate weather, and the rainforest is more readily available to visit. Hiking, touring, fishing, and outdoor life continues on a year-round basis, top to bottom, on both sides of the big island, but when you arrive at the community of Alert Bay on Cormorant Island you could ask about visiting Yukusem where you will learn about the study of Culturally Modified Trees (CMT). This is the study of human beings working to organize around rainforest resources. What David Garrick, anthropologist, uncovered on Hanson Island is the 'transgenerational' management of vegetation by First Nations at the north end of the Inside Passage, and it is amazing.

This careful study of transgenerational management provides evidence that First Nations used forest resources in coastal rainforests in complex arrangements. Special preserves of rainforest under carefully defined jurisdictions were ‘managed’ to create and provide essential resources. Social groups conducted large scale horticulture within particular groves of cedar trees on Yukusem’s 16 square kilometres, doing so on a truly grand scale. Together they made cedar trees do the most incredible things horticultural.

David Garrick uncovered cedar-shaping in CMTs during his long and fruitful tenure of archaeology on-site at Yukusem. This amazing process involves planning that spans centuries. This cultivation was done in a manner that shaped trees and modified them to produce a surplus of bark while maintaining the integrity of a living cedar tree. First Nations maximized cedar bark production by modifying the tree, doing this in a way that left the cedar tree to heal, thrive, and produce more surplus bark. It was a strategy of development that occurred because cedar bark was a staple product in the social and economic development of coastal life. This cultural product was used in an apparently endless array of purposes. The practice to cultivate giant cedars was millennial to make trees produce a surplus cedar bark into a raw material for production of manufactured goods.

Nothing was left to chance or waste. The term old-growth forest was meaningless within a culture that practised continuous and specialized cultivation in the growth of the forests over several centuries. Even a burnt forest was an opportunity to harvest a different list of highly-prized resources. Meanwhile, everything on Yukusem was planned around the need to produce cedar bark for future generations. A prime example of the transgenerational planning policy occurs on a site called Bear Grove on Yukusem. Garrick’s mapping points out the existence of at least 55 shaped cedars per hectare in the Bear Grove sector of the island. This is an intense concentration of evidence indicative of creating surplus bark. It becomes obvious from concentrations of CMTs of this magnitude that an organized effort was made to cultivate and exploit cedar bark in patterns showing sustainable, long-term, transgenerational planning processes.

The people of Yukusem living 1,350 years ago cultivated a specific tree to furnish Namgis carver Beau Dick with raw material for his canoe project in the modern age. Also in this transgenerational context, ancient people provided a modern chain of evidence to Harry Alfred and Don Svanvik, CMT researchers from Alert Bay who are able to exert First Nation jurisdiction over Yukusem cedar groves in the present. The vital (and heretofore missing) evidence was produced from messages in trees hundreds of years old. The fingerprints of this interaction with forests have been uncovered in many of the forests of B.C., even so, it was a long and arduous 20th century for the folks around Yukusem. Only in 2004 did the First Nations recover jurisdiction over Yukusem.

CMTs studied in this way by Garrick provided scientific resources and evidence to give First Nations proof of former jurisdiction. It is interesting to note, however, there was no apparent conflict in the management of Yukusem resources until about 1930, Garrick explains. His archaeological time-line shows that before the cataclysmic culture shock treatments took form (residential schools, banning of potlatchs, et al), the arrival of industrial foresters was a not-unwelcome event to a degree. The industrial foresters were cooperative by taking only a few trees from Yukusem’s treasured groves, and Garrick reports they apparently left cedar trees untouched, cedar was for the cedar shapers those who used it as a specially-managed and treasured resource. Thus Garrick has proven how two management paradigms co-existed!

It required an exercise of federal government policy to alienate First Nations from their management and jurisdiction over cedar shaping activities. From the time such government policies were introduced until Yukusem Heritage Society was formed in 2004 the cedar groves on Hanson Island faced dire circumstances. Garrick’s archaeological study was the one thing standing in their way, and in a pleasant turn since his study began a series of scientific facts have freed people to exert their sovereignty.

“I am the land and resource officer of the Namgis First Nation,” said Harry Alfred, one afternoon in a communal garden on Yukusem. Alfred described how people have rebounded because of Garrick’s work in these groves. Cultural energy burst from the CMT research and in a way people have regained a sense of cultural balance. New community energy has been born from the old secrets. Alfred and Don Svanvik sit on the Yukusem board of directors on behalf of the Namgis First Nation. Two other Bands share jurisdiction over Hanson Island (Tlowitsis and Muntagila). Alfred and Svanvik have become CMT experts within their communities. “The Namgis Nation,” said Alfred, “comprised about 4,000 km.” With a sweep of his arm he described a rectangular shaped territory with Yukusem sitting almost at the centre.

Furthermore, under the guidance of Namgis artist and lay-historian Beau Dick a group of volunteers has built a few community facilities on the south-west quadrant of Yukusem to teach people the meaning of the old ways. Dick described how one social organization took people into the silvan wilderness and constructed dugout canoes. It is known that canoes were constructed in the cultivated cedar groves in areas adjoining other food or health or community-based cultivated resources. The canoes were dugouts, designed in a technically superior manner to take people back and forth between communities and fishing grounds or ther harvest areas throughout the Broughton Archipelago.

The communities of old are buried today in the forest floor in the surroundings of etchings of harvest found in ancient cedar trees. A volunteer canoe project amounts to a defacto form of reclamation of Yukusem and was the idea of Dick who grew up in a Big House society that remained standing in the splendour of Kingcome Inlet, representing a miraculous survival where traditionalists dodged bullets (literal and figurative) through many previous decades.

Dick learned to carve from his grandfather and father and obtained teaching about hidden meanings in a unique form of artistic expression. Life goes on, yes, and Beau Dick, despite being a realist, believes he is restoring historical significance to the nation by uncovering the old secrets of cedar forest management. On the southwest quadrant of Yukusem he is staging a come-back by building a cultural camp to teach people the old ways -- sharing a forest in a transgenerational and environmentally sustainable way.