Angelique Merasty Levac discusses how God Opens Doors

Angelique is author of a book entitled God Opens Doors, Kisemanitow Peyohtena Iskwahtem, in print September 2012. The publisher is Indian Life Ministries, and they have followed her art and business career and admired her Christian walk for many years.

"I was born at Midnight Lake, Manitoba," said Angelique Merasty Levac. "It is bush and nobody lives there,” in the far northern reaches of central Canada. Angie holds close to her memories of a distant place spent with her grandparents in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s. She was toddling around the wilderness with her grandparents from the time she was a one year old. That was when she was born, and her mother had a rush of kids come, and so Angie was given to the grandparents to raise. Today, the same place is as wild as it once was, when she was a babe in the woods. “Once in a while a few of my siblings or family members traps there.” It is a Cree people’s playground and belongs to no one else.

I lived beside a nice lake," and she enjoyed the company of loons going 'co-co-op' in the morning hours, she recollects, "My grandparents tried to teach me how to trap when I was six years old." Her grandmother gave her a tiny squirrel trap and showed her where to set the trap under a bundle of roots at the base of a tree.

They were on the lakeside close to the family dwelling, which was a large canvas tent, and Angie would not stray. Her grandmother, she recalls, provided explicit instructions about being very patient when trapping. She had to leave the place alone to permit the process to take its course.

Little Angie couldn’t wait till the grandparents went to sleep and she approached her fledgling trap-line to see if she was enriched. She stuck her six year old hand into the squirrel-sized cubby hole and trapped herself, snap. “Ouch,” she hollered, with a sudden affinity for nature, for the squirrel that wasn't there.

It was a lesson that she can freshly recall, and she smiles about the painful few minutes while she inspects her feminine fingers. This trapping snarl proved to be the end of Angelique Merasty Levac's life as a trapper (and a few families of bushy tailed squirrels have reason to chatter in gratitude).

Those years in the lakes district straddling the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border were made up of the old itinerant way of connecting with the land and which had ever made the vast domain their home. Angie’s grandpa always found it necessary to break camp and find a different place every few weeks, for he was a trapper, hunter, and fisherman.

"My grandpa never lived in one place," Angie explained, and the family packed their large tent and barrel stove and set off looking for the right place in a particular time of year. She said it was a lean existence.

"I used to help my grandmother gather branches she used to make a floor inside the tent. There was nothing to play with when I was a child,” a fact she once pointed out to her grandma. She told her she wanted a doll, so her grandma made Angie a doll. “Do you know what my doll was? We had a flour sack and she tied up the bag into a rag doll, eyes made from the soot of the fire. That was my doll.”

At 9 years of age Angie began to spend more time with her mother and less time with her grandparents when she came to be old enough to be more help to her mother, who was by now raising most of the twelve children she bore on the Lynn Lake railroad line in northern Manitoba.

At this point Angie remembers watching the birch bark biting when she went out with ladies on berry picking sojourns. “The blue berries found in burned out areas, and cranberries found in forested places.”

It was the cranberry picking trips where she saw the women take respite to conduct little competitions. They would peel birch bark and make pieces of art with their teeth but Angie was too young to think much about it. It was a first impression of the way the ladies had social exchanges by causing exquisite artistic impressions by birch bark biting. She remembers a few of them got tossed away.

It was not until much later that she herself would adopt and perhaps help to preserve a fast disappearing cultural practice of the Woodland Cree. It was her destiny to become a Cree cultural icon and reigning expert of a disappearing form of First Nation culture. Over the past three decades Angie garnered a lot of attention for the artistic skill at birch bark biting. She still does, with beautiful straight teeth, with which she takes on the task of an ancient artistic craft (she flosses regularly).

It is a strangely important coincidence that when she met her mentor of the art form the woman was also named Angelique Merasty (Angie’s maiden name). The mentor Angelique Merasty has passed away but not before she almost miraculously passed the legacy onto Angelique Merasty Levac, doing so under the most difficult conditions imaginable.

Angie’s gravitation to the art form is partly owed to bingo. Her mentor Angelique Merasty loved to play and was sitting waiting for a taxi ride to the bingo hall one evening in Beaver Lake, Saskatchewan. Part of the miracle was that the mentor sat in the company of an anthropologist while she waited, and to pass the time sitting beside the fire in winter she reached over and peeled a piece of birch bark off a log that had thawed, and she bit into it, and an exquisite piece of art was born.

The taxi arrived and she cheerfully, wordlessly (for she never spoke English) handed the birch bark biting to the professor who promptly sent it to the Manitoba Museum of Man in Winnipeg, and this prompted a full investigation and revelation of her ability. Soon articles began to appear detailing the art and the artist. And the mentor while being interviewed once expressed a wish to pass the craft along to someone before it was forgotten. Angelique the student saw this quote in a magazine article when she was 24 years of age

It is important to realize the way Angie grew up. She did not speak English until she was between 14 and 15 years of age; she spoke only Cree. She grew up in the days prior to Bill C-31 in Canada when a lot of Indian people were cut off from their Status by marriage, and Angie had no access to school, therefore, because her mother had been stripped of her Status by marriage to a Metis man.

Indeed, our Angie did not read English until she taught herself by reading the Holy Bible, and by the time she was 24 she had proficiency enough to read, and there she stood in a line-up at the post office in Uranium City, amazed to see her name described in a magazine.

She stared at the magazine story about Angelique Merasty, but it was not herself, except it was her name, a woman who was a practitioner of an ancient art form, a Cree culture art form, the artform she had seen her grandmother and mother practicing in the berry patches, and this same Angelique Merasty in the article described how she, "would like to pass this Native art form onto another."

Angie had those recollections of the ladies in the berry patches taking a rest to bite into birch bark and she decided thereabouts that the passing ought to be to herself. She credits the worship of God, "The Lord put that in my heart. Since I did it, it opened doors that I never dreamed of," including a visit to Bill Cosby in Philadelphia, USA, with a guest appearance on his remake of the TV classic 'You Bet Your Life.' She was interviewed by Keith Morrison on CTV, and appeared on BCTV, APTN, the Knowledge Network, and in numerous print articles, including this one in the nationwide Native Journal, and more awards to come in 2009. 

(For more information email dialogueondevelopment@gmail.com

Commercial Law Absent in First Nations Life

Economic development is a promising direction for First Nations in Canada, especially since the process has come under close scrutiny from coast to coast. University of Toronto Law School hosted a unique forum on First Nation economic development in 2008. “I think the most important thing is that everyone recognizes First Nation economic development is a political matter,” said the event moderator.

Holding an economic development conference at a law school should come as no surprise. Commercial law in Canadian life is huge, and until now, seemed strangely inconsequential to First Nations. Professor Doug Sanderson and other law faculty attended an intriguing luncheon address on day two of the conference highlighted by a speech delivered by Hon. Michael Bryant, Aboriginal Affairs minister, who suggested the need to create commercial law courts for First Nation reserves.

“How much of law in Canada is commercial law?” we asked. “Oh, about 60 percent or more,” Professor Sanderson replied. It is this type of law that sews up jurisdictional economics, and it is this law that is unavailable to aboriginal people. Aboriginal people are born under a completely different set of rules. Does not a single realization come to light that the Indian Act excludes a race of people from the economy by depriving access to commercial law? First Nation economic development is, in reality, written out of the realm of mainstream economics. A system of trusteeship holds all wealth, and monitored activity on an Indian Reserve has to be decided by a Minister of Indian Affairs. 122 sections of the Indian Act to make this potentate’s role very clear in the lives of aboriginal people. They are not allowed to have money.

Aboriginal economic development became a legal academic exercise with a national focus because the minster of Aboriginal Affairs in Ontario was arresting and jailing elders from Kitchenaumaykoosib Innunwig who protested Platinex Mines. Perhaps, it was out of frustration that the minister spoke to the matter as one of commercial rather than criminal concern. He called for a system to be put in place to accommodate the legal concerns of the First Na tions.

This is a fact of law, that a political document (the Indian Act) apparently deprives First Nations of a legal framework to possess money. The session’s moderator said solutions to these substantial concerns of legality are currently being sought. He believes people are only beginning to meet to address economic matters at the political level. Sanderson added that the situation is made even worse because a “settler versus native” attitude prevails and political issues remain unresolved. He noted the situation at Caledonia (and could have included the mind-boggling threat to personal security undergoing Mohawk people when they go to the store).

Sanderson said, “There are many ways for First Nations and corporate Canada to act together. . .The current political reality demands that thought and speech gravitate around ways to do economic development.” Sanderson also suggested that the best example for a way forward was cited in Minister Bryant’s speech when Bryant raised the subject of the Chocktaw Tribal Council (CTC) in the USA. The CTC has a federally-constituted commercial law court that governs activities under their jurisdiction along the Mississippi. They have American Indian judges and Chocktaw commercial law.

Teaching a treasured and ancient craft in birch bark

The Bark Canoe Store opened in 2000 in Spokane, “originally operating by making birch bark canoes,” explains John Lindeman, owner, “and it expanded to providing birch bark for cabinet and furniture and construction, then expanded to accessories and things that might go along with birch bark canoes like Hudson Bay axes, packs, materials, then came delivery of birch bark canoe building classes.

 "We are known for taking courses to communities," often First Nation communities. "I wanted the building of birch bark canoes to revive by going to the people who originally built them, starting in Minnesota, going as far as Alaska, also to Nebraska, school museums around the country, wherever they wanted, building birch bark canoes in as little as three weeks to a month.”

 These canoe construction classes reach everyone from kids to elders, “and we were doing camps in Canada, also holding classes in Spokane where people got together and each made a single canoe in a group project. In other classes individuals came to build one for themselves.” Birch bark is one medium of construction for the canoes, but usage is demanding on vessels, especially in activities such as film-work or cultural reenactments, “a crowd that wanted a resilient fibreglass replica, so we make a whole variety ot those.”

The company sells birch bark laminates that work over substrates of plywood to make panelling for walls, cabinets, a birch bark finish that is, “very pretty,” says Lindeman, “lots of Canadian customers.” Panels, likewise canoes, have sold in Europe. Most of the birch bark comes from New Hampshire, Maine, Minnesota, before he found a contact in Siberia, “Now I am importing from Siberia, which birch bark is used in building the canoes.”

 A lot of the birch bark is reclaimed from dead trees found near the border of Nelson, B.C., “There is a lot of dying birch, I take the birch bark found there for furniture, not canoes.” Regarding the dying birch, Lindeman says, “the birch tree is a canary in the coal mine,” it's telling us something about the environment. The spindly hardwood like alder, birch, maple, poplar grows up first in clear-cut, “what they will do is defoliate to kill hardwood and do this because no market exists for the hardwood,” essentially done after a clear-cut with the potential to stay in the ecosystem for 5000 years, he says, with an invasion with chemicals.

“I deliver courses year-round and am very portable with this. It is an intensive three weeks, whether making one canoe, or ten.” Where individuals are making their own canoe, up to four can participate in a course, in which it takes over 200 hours. The program works well at structured settings like museums, schools, and other institutions, “My goal is teaching the teachers at places like community centres, showing how to build any style from Great Lakes to Athabascan, Dogrib, we do all different traditional styles.”

There’s been some study done on this on Lindeman’s part, “I took a class in Wisconsin in 1992,” when he had a place in Port Wayne near Lake Superior, “Ojibway country,” he notes. He was taught by David Gidmark, who was trained by Algonquin elders in Quebec. “I’ve done two-seat miniatures up to 26 foot long, most typically 14 to 18 feet.” One fibreglass replica 36 foot canoe he made was used on Hudson River in New York,  “They bought a 20 foot birch bark and 36 foot that featured in the 500 year anniversary of Henry Hudson going up that river.”

Lindeman has done canoes for movies, “There is an on-going demand for this kind of building, every customer has their own unique situation from store to museum, and some canoes may never been seen alight on the water. The original canoes are not surprisingly kind of expendable, like the 26 foot Ojibway canoe that travelled from Keese River, Wisconsin to the Pacific by the Mackenzie River, and at the end the canoe was ceremonially burned. To those who lamented this happening, it is worth knowing even Mackenzies' canoes were destroyed by the end of the voyage.)

The aim is to restore the art of the birch bark canoe. “I want to revitalize the building of these canoes, which were formerly utilitarian, and now exist as an artform, I want to see more building going on.” He explains that the birch is used in multiple ways, building to medicine, “Medicinal companies are exploiting the birch tree, and it is known that birch bark is resistant to mold, and furthermore is used as an inner sole for shoes because it kills athletes foot.”

The fact is that those in the market for buying canoes for schools, say, to start a ricing program, “they would have aluminum and plastic canoes, they don't want to bang around birch bark canoes. That is the idea of the fibreglass ricing canoe, to re-establish a cultural practice in this form of canoe it handles like a ricing canoe, but it's fibreglass it will take a beating. You take care of the wood on the gunwales but the hull, you can leave it outside, you can ram it into the shore.”

August 2012 Dialogue on Development (west edition)

July 2012 Dialogue on Development business section:

Marketing Ģat Leedm LLP is project-oriented

PRINCE RUPERT (May 2012) - A new joint venture including Metlakatla Development Corporation, Island Tug and Barge, and Williams Moving has been launched, called Ģat Leedm, "They are underway now, and a half dozen people are working under the Ģat Leedm LLP transportation umbrella, and employment situation that will only continue to expand," says John Lindsay, "We have designed a company to provide a 'supply chain solution' for the north west coast, owned and operated by the First Nations, working on the marine side through a process of different opportunities. There is lots of potential since facilities are under construction and expanding in Prince Rupert."

Ģat Leedm is presently active in the logistics of trucking and warehousing around the area, "They are running four trailers in moving aggregate for the Ridley Terminal site expansion underway in Prince Rupert." Ģat Leedm LLP is positioned to offer choices on shipping using scenarios that utilize a flexible supply chain that could be barge or truck or rail, or whatever combination works to the benefit of cost efficient shipping contracts.

"Sometimes we find one solution cheaper than another,” says Lindsay, “and we have the complete supply chain solution, including warehousing, by working collaboratively to give clients the options. We offer barge truck and rail, and we can provide transportation solutions based on design of this company from the supply chain solutions perspective. When somebody wants something moved we can do it, barging, trucking and warehousing. We're not just a tug and barge company and we are looking at a lot of different opportunities.”

Marketing Ģat Leedm LLP is project-oriented and plans are logistically feasible to maximize service and make shipping economically feasible. "We are trying to build the capacity where it makes sense for First Nations. We took the business approach and launched Ģat Leedm from a business plan that makes sense,” says Lindsay. The company was announced at the Naboc conference in March 2012 in Prince Rupert.

"Prince Rupert is starting to reach a new potential." Lindsay's Island Tug and Barge is one of the joint venture partners and has a history from the 1960s on the BC coast. "We have had First Nation customers many years and this is our first joint venture business relations. This will be a big year for the new company.”

Ryan Leighton, Director of Operations for the Metlakatla Development Corporations says, "We have strong expressions of interest in this new company and we are devoted to providing a wide range of transportation services," in a two-prong approach, land and marine transportation. "We are presently working at the expansion site for Ridley Terminals Inc. in Prince Rupert.  We are under way moving aggregate with four tractors and four sets of tandem side dumps."

"We are looking at training for the marine side, and training on land operations is also a high priority." The employment side of these business developments is clearly focussed on First Nation employees, "with all the projects, including the work undertaken with Adventure Paving at  RTI. We are pleased to say there is a 50% First Nation labour component and we really pushed to have the other 50% come from the local area.  "Nothing like this has been done before in Prince Rupert," says Leighton. "There is going to be a lot of training and new jobs up in this area . Everybody from John Lindsay and Jim Williams to our corporate team players pulled together in this strategic move by MDC to partner in business. Things are getting moving."
 

Vero Management Inc. was retained to develop a training program for the marine certification of employees. The primary intent of the trianing is to ensure we have qualified, skilled staff, but the added bonus is that we also have local people trained to respond to emergencies. With all the activity that is taking place in the region if an accident were to occur response times will be greatly reduced. The training program could be utilized by other industry players in terms of emergency response and necessary certification required in a marine or terrestrial environment.”

Gail Murray says, "The training focuses on certifying individuals that will enable them to find employment in the marine services sector. Courses offered include radio operation, search and rescue basics,marine emergency duties, small vessel operation, restricted operator certificates, maritime OSA level one and two, incident command training, shore-line clean up and maintenance, international marine oil pollution response, The training also incorporates essential skills that will prepare individuals for employment.”

She adds, “Other supports such as tutors are part of the program to ensure students reach a high level of success.” Murray believes the training program is deliverable to the region at any time. The training is adaptable and would benefit other First Nations and communities throughout the coast. The training is built as a modular, multi-week program. In the end, it will qualify people to work in the marine services sector and gets them on their way towards a fulfilling and exciting career."

Williams Moving & Storage announced their proud participation in Ģat Leedm in a press release about the joint venture with "Island Tug & Barge and the Metlakatla band of Northwestern British Columbia." The limited liability partnership agreement was signed in February, and, "the name chosen for the company is Ģat Leedm LLP. Ģat Leedm means “strength” in the Metlakatla’s native  language.” The release explains, “The company will be comprised of two main branches. Ģat Leedm Logistics LLP will be comprised of Williams Moving & Storage and the Metlakatla Band. Ģat Leedm Marine Services LLP will be comprised of Island Tug and the Metlakatla Band. Together, both branches will work together to offer unparalleled logistics service to Northwestern BC, by way of land and sea.” 

July 2012 Dialogue on Development East and West

JULY EAST & WEST DIALOGUE ON DEVELOPMENT BUSINESS SECTION

June 2012 Western Edition Dialogue on Development

BUSINESS SECTION IN JUNE 2012 WESTERN EDITION
Renewable energy at front of the contents in the story about Innergex and Kwoiek Energy, a Run of River project under construction in the Fraser Canyon. Business section contains a detailed article on First Nations in log export market.

SEE JUNE WEST

Business Dialogue Print Editions from the past

February 2010

Diving industry beckons potential employees

At the Canadian Working Divers Institute in Northern Ontario, Gordon Hay and team teaches divers to be the world-class Unrestricted Surface-Supplied Divers in demand around the country in various kinds of industrial scenarios, from energy sector, to municipal services, to coastal aquaculture operations (three coasts).

“We condensed a nine month training program into 12 weeks of intensive training. It runs 12 hours a day, six days a week,” explains Hays, “which is better for the people wanting this kind of career development.” Diving is a job for people willing to do the work as jack-of-all-trades underwater, he says. They may be employed in the energy sector in the Beaufort Sea, or aquaculture on any of the three coasts in Canada. It could take them anywhere in the world,” he says, “Training occurs near Chapleau on Lake Borden, “The work takes people across the country and around the world.”

The training institute runs one course per year for up to 30 students. “We supply room and board from August 7th to about November 1, and train them to a standard that exceeds all other diving training standards in the world, preparing personnel for jobs in the Arctic Ocean, Beaufort Sea, Hibernia oil field, Great Lakes, or anywhere else.” According to Hays, “There is room in the industry for more skilled people. Average age is around 24, but we get students from ages 18 to 40 and up. Our training is surface supply level, making it certified for deeper diving and using more tools underwater. info@canadianworkingdivers.com

Kelly Korol runs Dive Safe commercial diving school in Campbell River, B.C., and says diving training is proving to be a good fit in First Nations communities, divers working in places like Klemtu and on the other side of Vancouver Island at Ahousaht. "We are a trade school teaching commercial diving that leads to employment in a variety of areas, especially sea food harvesting and aquaculture," says Korol. "Diving for urchins in various waters and one student is currently training to be able to harvest goeduck in Ahousaht.

Korol says, "Bands have access to fisheries and licenses and where the community has nothing else going on, diving and using the commercial diving skills from training can lead to employment where you are at home every night with the wife and kids, gainful employment close to home. When the weather is bad, you don't go diving, when the weather is good, you're working in aquaculture site work, or harvesting urchins, scallops, and we train the divers for commercial fisheries and aquaculture.

"We have a couple students from the Hakai Institute, north of Rivers Inlet," (programs at the institute are conducted by partner institutions such as the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia and the University of Northern British Columbia). "Our training enables students to conduct underwater scientific diving studies and other employment is found working in environmental assessments."

Korol is enthusiastic about a current training program he is preparing to deliver to Nunavut, "on clam digging underwater. First Nation and Inuit people have huge pristine clam beds, and we are working out details to deliver training there," and, he notes, "It's a case again of First Nations returning to work in traditionlal lands to fill a huge demand for the resources. The guys here on the west coast and making a living harvesting sea urchin and goeduck, sea cucumbers, and it's filling the demand in the Asian market."

On the recreational side of diving, he notes, "B.C. is cold water diving at its best in the world, strong currents and clear water lots of life on the bottom when you get down there. You see all kinds of activity." Dive safe runs training courses throughout the year, "We do two courses. One is a five-week scuba curse, and the other is a seven-week surface supply course. Surface supply diving is safer and certain kinds of seafood harvests require you to be wearing weighted surface supply gear, to keep you on the bottom while you pick the geoduck off the floor by the neck. It's seven weeks to finish the surface supply course." Aquaculture work is mostly done by scuba trained and equipped divers. Surface supply diving takes longer to learn use of power tools underwater, or welding, and surface supply diving is used on pressure washing boats of marine equipment underwater.

 

The maintenance of a fish farm is a constant undertaking, underwater, with specific demands by industry, government, and society that are met by specialized outfits like Seaveyors Environmental and Marine Services Ltd., of Courtenay B.C. Canada. Darren Horler is owner of the company started in 2006 to do the work for a thriving aquaculture economy. net pen inspections and environmental monitoring using rov anchoring systems current

"We dive with a minimum two divers on inspection teams, sometimes three, and every situation is unique. Before each dive we come up with the plan. Most aquaculture related dives occur in fairly protected waters, and the teams work around the metal and steel frame net pens, inspecting nets and anchoring systems on a scheduled basis, as well as on-call inspections." Seaveyors is fully equipped with technology-laden water craft and equipment, "a big investment into the industry." He explains, "I am running the operations with eight professionals on staff, including our divers and a biologist to do certified Environmental inspection services."

 

"We are more than a dive contractor. We are working on top the water a lot, and we do specialized environmental contracting, and I like to think we have top skills with the equipment, but it's a small circle in this industry, and I know everybody personally. It's a tight ship in the underwater surveys industry, and there is a lot of competency. We do all waters, deep sea up to creek habitat."

The company is employed in environmental monitoring, "We get into a lot of third party work that comes from the demand for reports that are submitted to government," says Horler. His company's biology department has done all kinds work in the different Pacific species, commercial and environmental reports on things like goeduck, herring spawn, surveys, urchins, and a tremendous variety of other diving studies and reports made into databases. Reporting is done in many instances for DFO, especially since a transition in coast aquaculture industry report from provincial to federal jurisdiction about a year ago. Meanwhile the diving industry is a growing employment opportunity, "Definitely there are opportunities to get into the business of diving." The schools on the west coast have curriculum and certification level courses at the scuba-level and restricted diving level, which qualifies the graduates with Worksafe BC credentials for work in these kinds of marine services.

BC College of Diving principle Cory Beaudry knows a lot about the province of B.C. below the water line, all across the province and up and down the coast. "We teach unrestricted scuba and my experience with commercial diving begins 21 yrs ago, and I began the company Camcor Diving 19 years ago, and  opened the BC College of Diving in 2004, in Sidney BC." The college, which normally averages three courses per year is this year running two courses, one in the spring another in the fall. "The Unrestricted Scuba course is five weeks.  

This year's spring and fall courses will be done at the facility in Sidney and in the surrounding ocean waters. They find areas to practice in the 40 metres required to obtain the certification. When done, in his experience on the coastal operation of Camcor Diving, "the main work is aquaculture site maintenance  diving  in and around the net pens. Another coastal employment from the course is found in seafood harvesting, urchins, goeduck, sea cucumbers. His own company engages 14 full-time divers, "all on aquaculture."

Years ago fish farming maintenance was done by fish farmers themselves, and a lot of maintenance went by the way-side, then as the fish farms became advanced industrialized operations. Open-water certification programs highlight diving physiology, safe diving practices, and diving hazards,  Beaudry notes that diving demands a certain physiology that becomes apparent in the training stages. 

His business is into diving at fish farms, gaining a career worth of expertise on the maintenance of a fish farm. "It is highly specialized diving and I have been working at it 21 years. In fact, my Operations Manager trained me in the aquaculture diving industry and he has 30 years experience in the fish farming industry. Dives on farm sites are on average on average 70  to 90 feet, to do net pen inspection for DFO, mortality diving, underwater construction of new sites, each of which are anchored with weight systems to prevent billowing from currents, and invasions by sea lions and other predators."

Farms sites on the ocean receive scheduled maintenance, new constructions are done to install or move sites. The waters vary, and in fact, up north the diving gets to be some crazy stuff. Experience really counts in a hazardous environment like deepwater diving. In fact, BC College of Diving has a prerequisite that states all course entrants must have been a recreational diver with over 10 hours bottom time and a WCB Divers medical. He has seen people from a wide range of ages, "We had a  woman 57 old in the training, and we recently had a Haisla member, Dennis Robinson, 54, take the course.

In training, as on the job, "I hold safety above all," says Beaudry. I am a CSA Dive committee member, and I am on the Diver Certification Board of Canada, and obtained a certain amount of recognition among colleagues. camcordiving@telus.net

The making of a company to do broad-based marine services

 Port services are expanding at the Port of Prince Rupert, B.C., in a huge growth area joined now by a tripartite business venture with Island Tug and Barge, Metlakatla, and Lax Kw’alaams First Nations.

While discussing the new marine services company that is being formed on the Northwest coast, Ryan Leighton, Director of Operations for the Metlakatla Development Corporation (MDC) stated, “It`s in the very early stages,” says Ryan, and it is difficult to foresee what opportunities we have for generating employment. It`s a matter of moving assets to Prince Rupert and going from there.”

Ryan says, “There is a multitude of different opportunities we are looking at; however, at this time, everything is preliminary and nothing is set in stone.” The tripartite business group that includes Metlakatla, Lax Kw’Alaams and Island Tug and Barge is building the business portfolio.

Ryan notes that the North has an array of opportunities. MDC has a number of companies that range from forestry, a gas station, a tour company, ferry services, and an education centre that delivers a variety of educational and skills-building programs in Prince Rupert. The MDC is committed to creating opportunities that will sustain the two primary Coastal Tsimshian communities of Metlakatla and Lax Kw’Alaams.”

The new marine services project will operate across the Northwest coast region, “We are involved regionally and we’re going to grow. Barge services up here provide essential fuel, materials, supplies, everything right down to garbage remediation, “and our services will extend as far North as Alaska.”

He goes on to say, “We are faced with labour difficulties and the strong demand for capacity building in our communities. The issue of skill development is widespread and we have to spend a lot of time and money on capacity-building. We have the opportunities; we now need the skilled labour resources.”

The MDC, through their education centre (FNT&DC), has already started training First Nations people in a number of areas including college readiness, adult graduation and labour skills programs. Harold Leighton, MDC’s CEO, is a firm believer in providing the Band membership with the necessary foundational skills that will allow them to pursue further education in the area of their choice. Regarding the agreement between the Port of Prince Rupert and the Coast Tsimshian, Ryan’s comments were, “The signing is imminent. The federal government made their announcement a few weeks ago. The agreement includes many things.”

Metlakatla has a membership of over 800, and the membership for Lax Kw’Alaams is over 3200 members. Ryan affirms, “The agreement between the Port and the Coast Tsimshian allows for jobs, sole source contracting, and participation in all public information programs relating to the port. This agreement has taken a number of years to negotiate. The signing of it will confirm to us that the port acknowledges their obligation to negotiate Impact Benefit Agreements that recognize Metlakatla’s and Lax Kw’Alaams’ rights and title in this territory.”

The Coast Tsimshian community leadership made the business proposal when they approached ITB about forming a broad-based marine services company, “Lax Kw’alaams, Metlakatla (First Nations),  and Island Tug and Barge Ltd. signed a joint venture partnership agreement on April 12, at the 2011 National Aboriginal Business Opportunities Conference, held in Prince Rupert.”

The press release says Lax Kw’alaams and Metlakatla First Nations make up the Coast Tsimshian Nation, with the core of their exclusive traditional territory being the Prince Rupert Harbour.

“This is not a tugboat company,” says John Lindsay, ITB vice president and general manager, “It is a fully equipped marine services company in a hot area of economic development.” Lindsay says the Port of Prince Rupert is undergoing all kinds of expansion to meet the shipping demands of commodity sectors like coal, potash, and other export minerals. “Lax Kw’alaams and Metlakatla leaders came to us and proposed the making of a company to do broad-based marine services, and we were happy to be asked.”

The new company will emerge over the coming weeks with port services in all areas of support for vessels, including construction of facilities, and environmental protection and remediation operations that will range along the entire coast. Island Tug and Barge itself is engaged in chartered and scheduled barging and towing services in Canada and abroad. This new tripartite company for BC Coastal communities has a solid foundation. The new company will be providing tug and barge, fuel supply, short sea shipping, marine construction, and other marine services to a range of customers on the north coast.

“We worked in collaboration with our two partners to plan the company launch. Our goals include recruiting and preparing employees with training and development. Employment skills are required with the labour force that we intend to employ,” therefore recruitment includes a strong push into both communities. “We are very pleased to be part of these communities and hire the people who are available,” for the wide range of job opportunities created.

Aboriginal business planners mapped the new employment prospects coming to communities in a situation of business ownership by two respective Band entities. ”The labour base is ready to be trained,” said Lindsay. “Marine operations at port facilities are regulated by Transport Canada, and all kinds of certification is required for our employees. It takes time and we are starting with the basics.”

ITB is working with First Nations that have marine facilities, and some personnel, already at work for ITB, though the company has never analyzed the workforce for the racial make-up of the employees, and always respects the territorial integrity and inherent rights of the communities they have long-served. The new company opens opportunity to expand infrastructure on Watson Island and Metlakatla with port and marine service facilities that could adjunct to Port of Prince Rupert in the future. The commencement of operations for the new company will occur by the end of summer 2011, while naming of this venture will occur during the summer once Elders of both nations are consulted. The new company will be imprinting national imagery in branding and marketing of the entity.

When signing the agreement and making the announcement in late April, Chief Councillor Garry Reece said, “We are extremely pleased to be joining with Island Tug, which will allow us to continue to bring skills and employment opportunities to my People.” Chief Councillor Harold Leighton of Lax Kw’alaams followed by stating, “Our communities have large traditional  territories that encompass Prince Rupert and the North Coast. The marine economic development opportunities for us are significant, and partnering with Island Tug will enable us to tap into those opportunities.”

Recently, the Coast Tsimshian agreed to a business and employment package with the Port of Prince Rupert, and Chief Reece stated, “This is just a first of many steps we are taking to build opportunity in the Prince Rupert area, which will be good for everyone.” Lindsay concluded, “Island Tug has a long history of serving First Nations and other communities on the B.C. coast. We’re very pleased to work with Lax Kw’alaams and Metlakatla  to develop a range of marine opportunities in their traditional territories on the north coast.”