Pacific salmon community comes together in Canada

to cast a ‘Beamish’ of light on salmon science
​​

Gulf of Alaska Expedition Departed Feb 18, 2019

A scientific expedition sailed into the Gulf of Alaska in the month of February of this winter with scientists from Korea, Japan, USA, Canada, and Russia, "We're surveying as much of the Gulf of Alaska as we can in 25 days," says Dr. Richard Beamish. "All species in the gulf waters are being studied," and, with 2019 being declared the International Year of Salmon, obviously a focus will be made on this iconic species.

There are 50 people onboard the Russian vessel to conduct the experiments, 21 scientists, and 29 crew, technicians, and assistants. The expedition is a first-ever mission to study the ocean ecology of these important fish, about 1/3 of all salmon are in the Gulf of Alaska in the winter and this includes Asian chum salmon. "Overall we are going to have an estimation of the numbers of all salmon," says Beamish. The expedition will have DNA evidence of the origins of the fish. Eighty percent of the fish in the study are most likely to be chum and pink salmon.

Salmon in the gulf will be coming from a variety of sources, "A percentage of pink salmon will have been reared in hatcheries." Fish arrive in the winter to compete for available food, "Winter is when the food for the fish is at a minimum. Thus we will calculate the 'carrying capacity' of the gulf with the purpose of evaluating effective stewardship of fish resources."

Several hypotheses have been tabled, for example, "We intend to learn the most efficient use of hatcheries. Commercial fishing effects are also part of the science. There is annual demand on salmon fish stocks. With the operation of salmon hatcheries around the Pacific Rim, there are concerns that the hatchery fish impact wild salmon. A major reason for the expedition is to understand the basic mechanisms in ocean science."

Pink and chum are the most prevalent and probably the most observable. "This study has never been done to this extent, although the Japanese have gone out and done about 10 sets on one occasion, and about 15 sets on another."

Observations will be made on growth rates, age of the fish, and fish health. "We will test the hypothesis that abundance of these salmon appears may be determined by the end of their first year in the ocean.

We will look to see if the fish that grow faster, quicker in the first months at sea show the greatest chance of survival." Dozens of measurements will be taken, including extensive observation of the present state of oceanography.

"We are looking at the presence of plankton, predators, and salinity," says Beamish. "The issues of climate will be closely examined. Salmon inhabit the top 40 metres of ocean and temperature conditions affect the presence of plankton. Plankton is a major part of the diet of pink and chum, but not the exclusive food, squid is major, and small fish."

The program for this scientific expedition was put together by Dr. Beamish, "It was privately arranged. The scientists agreed to gather data and take it to the University of British Columbia to be shared for the purpose of study and reporting." Beamish wasn't on the voyage to the gulf departed Feb. 18 and returning to Vancouver Mar 18., "I'm too old."

The data will be assembled and preliminary reports will begin to emerge by the fall of 2019. "DNA evidence takes time to collate." One of the questions they are hoping to answer is, why is the commercial fishery for salmon experiencing some of the highest catches in history? Last year the Russians caught 640,000 metric tonnes of pink salmon which was their highest catch in history.

The scientists want to provide mechanisms for discussing sustainable harvesting practices, especially in light of changing climate and ocean conditions.

"As a society, we want to be the stewards over what's available and have consistent returns of fish to the rivers. One of the amazing things about salmon on the west coast is how they rarely go to extinction of the fish in the rivers. Other species across the country such as yellow perch, walleye pike, can have complete failures in some years. But such events are very rare here with salmon."

Even so, Beamish notes, the trends on salmon abundance on the Fraser runs have been going downward in the past 30 years. "The 2009 run of sockeye returning to the Fraser was the worst in history and there has been a declining trend since the early 1990s. However, the return in 2010 was the highest in history. Chinook salmon in the Fraser River are also declining in abundance. It is important to understand the mechanisms that cause these trends and this is a main reason for the expedition. " WEBSITE FOR DR. RICHARD BEAMISH

Dr. Beamish is expecting the return of an international team of scientists from the Gulf of Alaska on or about March 18, 2019. They set off from Vancouver on February 18. "The work is proceeding better than expected," says Dr. Beamish. "They have had good weather and they are exceeding all expectations in covering the areas of the gulf to be studied."

The scientists studying fish and oceans in winter conditions in the Gulf of Alaska come from Russia, Korea, Japan, Canada and USA, "They are getting along very well. Conditions on the ship are good, although all the instructions and signage are in Russian," it's a Russian vessel after all, "and language barriers do exist among the crew and professionals, everybody is getting along very well, the food is great."

They are finding the catches smaller than may have been anticipated, however, since it's never been done before, nobody really knew what to expect. "They are catching all species of salmon. The majority have been chum salmon. They have plenty of samples, there's not much left of the fish they catch," everything is preserved for the vast amount of study underway on the ship and that which is to come in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia.

"We expect them to come into Vancouver on March 18 as planned. They will also visit the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, and we expect them in Nanaimo on March 20." A historically important biological station in Russia will be sending a team of scientists and administrators to meet up at the historically important station in Nanaimo.





This anchor-project in the 2019 International Year of Salmon has been developed by Dr. Beamish and funding has come from a variety of sources, including $200,000 from the BC Salmon Farmers Association. See https://yearofthesalmon.org/gulf-of-alaska-expedition/

John Paul Fraser is Executive Director of the BCSFA, "We are all anxious to see and learn about the findings," of the Gulf of Alaska expedition, "so that we can better tackle the problems together.

"BC’s salmon farmers are proud to be a founding sponsor of this expedition, and we are all anxious to see and learn about the findings," says Fraser.

"As Dr. Beamish says, there’s a ‘black box’ out there in the North Pacific that we have shed no light on."

Fraser adds, "And because of Dick’s brilliance and perseverance, the salmon community is coming together to cast a ‘Beamish’ of light on the unknown challenges the salmon face."

Freelance Writing by Mack McColl

A Landscape Ecologist, a Mayor and a Sociologist Walk Into a Forestry Conference

WFCA Conference panelists, Landscape Ecologist Dr. Paul Hessburg, Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson and Psychologist Dr. Robin Cox characterized the kinds of dimensions and scales of collaboration we will need to enlist to adapt to climate change as citizens and forestry practitioners.

It’s been an animated year so far for B.C. forestry conferences. The TLA annual convention was well attended again. The 2019 ABCFP conference was sold out weeks in advance. And the WFCA event at the end of January had our largest attendance ever. For those of us who organize these things we like to think it’s our programs that are so attractive. But there’s likely something else drawing people together lately in such strength.

It might be in part the shared feeling of pending change—a collective, Are you seeing this too? The sense of being on the cusp of something significant seems shared across a range of dimensions and scales from business relationships to the policy around climate change and its consequences.

Our WFCA conference panel that put an ecologist, a mayor and a sociologist on the stage to discuss forestry and its role in our adaption to climate change may well have caught that zeitgeist.

We need to plan and act at a landscape level. We need to understand the dynamics gaining momentum across forest ecosystems and work with them.

And we need to give our communities and citizens a sense of agency lest they become demoralized in the face of coming events. Given what history is just beginning to ask of forestry in aiding society to live with wildfire and other natural disasters it may be something for which only a collective response can answer.

It’s right and timely then that these conferences are attracting good crowds and the thinking and sharing that goes with them. We will need more of this kind of collaboration heading into the future by the looks of it.

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.

Working with First Nations to increase worker safety

Lisa Houle gave a presentation on behalf of WorksafeBC at the First Nations Safety Conference Oct, 22, 2018, at the Nanaimo Convention Centre. WorksafeBC is the injury insurance program for employers and employees on worksites in all industries across the province. "We work at the industry-level with partnerships in collaboration with the employers and the workforce," says Houle.

In the past few years, "We have developed a history of visiting First Nations schools to provide education resources to non-graduated students. We've been working together with First Nations to create greater awareness of safety on the job," no matter where the work is found, in the commercial fisheries, Indigenous agriculture, First Nations forestry, these are a few examples.

Houle describes a few of the many WorksafeBC initiatives and provides links to the WorksafeBC website for further information: "We have a Young Worker Campaign because work can be intimidating, especially if you’re new to the job or don’t have a lot of experience in the industry. You want to make a good first impression by showing your co-workers and your boss that you know what you’re doing.

"That’s why, while talking about safety at work, asking for training, or bringing up concerns can be hard, it’s important. Employers are responsible for providing adequate training before you start work. Proper training and orientation helps to ensure that everyone stays safe on the job.

"If you get a gut feeling that something isn’t safe, or you don’t know how to do your job safely, listen to your instincts and talk to your manager about it. It could save your life or the life of your co-worker." https://worksafebclistentoyourgut.com/

Houle says WorksafeBC runs a First Responders Mental Health Committee that provides an effective website interface for initiating contact and services like Self-Assessment "Sometimes it’s helpful to take a personal mental health check, to see how you’re managing with the stress and pressure of work (and life!)."

The website supplies a contact reference on "Ways To Help": "Is someone you work with struggling with their mental health? Do they seem stressed? Are they acting differently—or is there something a little “off” in the way they’re behaving? Here are things you can do to offer support." Learn more about valuable mental health resources http://BCFirstrespondersmentalhealth.com

Houle explains, "At WorksafeBC we have 3000-plus resources with an industry-related focus covering the entire spectrum of job-related safety." She rolled a film about one of the higher-risk careers in B.C., the commercial fishery, "There have been 26 work-related deaths from 2007 to 2017 in the commercial fishery." The injuries come every year and FishSafeBC was an organization launched in order to reduce the risk associated with employment in this valuable workplace sector.

lisa.houle@worksafebc.com

Forensic Nurse an expanding professional designation

At present, forensics nursing is an emerging field in Canada, recognized by the Canadian Nurses Federation, and taught in a growing number of schools. Nurses in the day-to-day work in hospitals in Canada are involved in forensic nursing usually without having specialized training. Nurses in emergency rooms and trauma units are dealing with public health issues and interacting with criminal cases such as gunshot wounds or sexual assaults.

Many communities don’t have a forensic nurse examiner yet, and, in cities where they do exist often their practice is limited to sex assault and domestic violence cases. But forensic nursing is the fastest growing area of specialization for nurses in North America.

Forensic nursing got a head-start in the 1990s in the USA. This expansion of medical services comes in light of the billions of dollars spent annually on the health effects from violence, particularly sexual assault, which can result in post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse, and suicide, and a plethora of physical ailments or diseases.

Forensic nurses are trained for dealing with sex assault victims and domestic violence victims. Patients are put in the care of professionals who have been trained to understand panic, fear, shame, and other emotions coursing through the minds of victims. As medical practitioners forensic nurses have wounds to tend, while at the same time their patients are demanding of a certain comfort during very difficult proceedings.

Urban health authorities have been plodding through the past 20 years adapting a workforce of on-call health care workers with forensic expertise that is a mix of medical care, emotional support, and criminal evidence collection. When dealing with a myriad of emotions, forensic nurses are taking care of more than wounds, furthermore, they are collectors of essential evidence, including semen, pubic hairs, blood samples, and photographs of injuries.

The job in the forensic nursing profession is to look after the physical and mental health of the patient first, then to assist police in making a case against a sex offender or violent partner. Demand is growing for forensic nursing teams to expand into child abuse, elder abuse, serious and fatal car crashes, or any violent crimes in society. Yet as late as 10 years ago forensic nursing was relatively obscure. Today forensic studies certification issues from several universities and while to this day most of the students are cops, more nursing professionals enter the study every year.

The process of gathering forensic evidence in sexual assault is a difficult task involving the 'rape kit,' which includes collection of semen and hairs, bagging of clothing, taking of photos, and conduct of a HIV risk assessment. A forensic nurse will be required to spend an average of four hours with a patient-victim, but this can go on longer. In more extreme situations the patient needs to be admitted to the hospital. One in five sex assault patients require medical care beyond the processing of a 'rape kit.'

In the opinion of many in the medical profession, “Every emergency department should have a forensic nurse.” Domestic violence presents different issues for the forensic nurse, and while an adult has the choice to not involve police, a forensic nurse may act to create support for a child that has been abused. Forensic personnel are trained in the collection of evidence, how to remove clothing without destroying evidence, how to package clothing by seeing to it that a 'chain of evidence' is maintained. They are trained to take notes that will hold up in court.

All these tasks require specialized training in forensic evidence collection, criminal procedures, expertise in making legal testimony, and other areas of legal, social, and medical interaction. In fact, these health professionals act as liaison between the medical and the criminal justice systems. Police find themselves with powerful allies trained as nurses who are entirely aware of the investigative concerns of police detectives, cognisant of the legal issues inherently important in preserving the chain of evidence.

Forensic nurses are primarily employed in hospitals, emergency or trauma units, but forensic nursing goes beyond the world of criminal investigation. It is a reality that disaster recoveries require identification of human remains. This can only be determined through the use of forensic investigation. They call this type of forensic work Medicolegal Death Investigation.

Randy Hanzlick wrote in the National Academies Press, “The medicolegal death investigation system is responsible for conducting death investigations and certifying the cause and manner of unnatural and unexplained deaths. Unnatural and unexplained deaths include homicides, suicides, unintentional injuries, drug-related deaths, and other deaths that are sudden or unexpected.” He notes that, “Twenty percent of the 2.4 million deaths in the US each year are investigated by medical examiners and coroners, accounting for approximately 450,000 medicolegal death investigations annually.”

Becoming a forensic nurse does not mean the practitioner will be involved with dead bodies, however, that is one path to take in the profession. Other career branches open to forensic nurses include expert medical witness, sexual assault nursing, nurse death investigator (medicolegal death investigation), community education, and other areas like investigation of traumatized patients from whatever the cause, be it assault and battery, attempted murder, and the list goes on and on.

The term forensic nurse emerged in the early 1990s and by 1996 forensic nursing was officially recognized in the USA by the American Association of Nurses. Multidisciplinary health care teams work closely with the survivors of traumatic injury or violence and with offenders and other professionals such as law enforcement. Training courses provide the student with evidence-based practice, forensic theory, research, practice concepts, and leads to further accreditation.

Across Canada the post-secondary education system teaching forensic expertise includes colleges and universities from coast to coast. British Columbia Institute of Technology offers Forensic Science. Dalhousie University offers forensic psychology. Mount Royal College in Calgary teaches Forensic Studies; Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto offers a Forensic Accounting Program.

While nurses and doctors begin the healing of physical and psychological injuries, police and the legal establishment need evidence properly collected and preserved. In Victoria, for example, about 15 nurses have signed up to work as forensic nurses. These are nurses specially trained to deal with a victim's medical trauma, but, at the same time, to gather key evidence to put an assailant behind bars.

The forensic nurse can establish the necessary boundaries to restore a victim's a sense of autonomy. They can work to return self-control to a victim by offering options to evidence collection and police involvement. If the time is wrong to deal with police and begin a legal proceeding, a victim can put the decision off for days or weeks, even months. The standard practice for a forensic nurse is to store evidence, sometimes for up to a year.

Det. Const. Mark Knoop, of Victoria Police special victims unit, told the Time-Colonist newspaper that cases can arise when the duty to protect the public takes charge. “Then, officers must press for a chance to gather information as quickly as possible.” In such cases, he says, forensic nurses are trained to deal with a traumatized patient while gathering key evidence. Forensic nurses "are vital to us," Knoop said.

Freelance Writing by McColl Magazine Staff 

Dr. Dick Beamish's talk at BCSFA's Seafood West summit

The year 2019 was the International Year of Salmon and featured a 'signature event' in the North Pacific with a study of the behavior of Pacific salmon. The study was conducted a group of 18 scientists aboard a Russian charter vessel spending 25 days in the Gulf of Alaska. (A second voyage was in March 2020 truncated by Covid-19.)

Dr Dick Beamish was instrumental in putting together this close examination of the iconic Pacific fish species in its offshore habitat, a major science expedition included with the year of Pacific salmon recognition. Beamish spoke to the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association at Seafood West in fall of 2018.

"The Russians caught 650,000 metric tonnes of pink salmon last year. Why was the number so high? They don't know." The record pink salmon catch in Russia was made primarily for the purpose of harvesting highly prized caviar. Nevertheless there is no explanation for the extraordinary size of the harvest.

Beamish notes Russia doesn't catch salmon the same way Canadians and Americans do. Russians set nets close to shore near the mouth of the rivers and the fish swim in to be caught. Canadians and Americans remain largely engaged in hunting the catch.

"Not long ago Japan had a rising amount of chum salmon to harvest," he says, peaking at 250,000 metric tonnes, but more recently their total catch of chum dropped to 70,000 metric tonnes.

The numbers of Pacific salmon being caught in wide ranging amounts creates a fount of mystery. "In the 1970s the thinking was doubling the catch was possible until the quantity of the catch dropped in Canada to 30,000 metric tonnes. After the 70s we believed we were seeing a shortage of juveniles but that thinking has been proven incorrect."

Knowledge of the behaviour of wild salmon is still basically at square one. "We may have an understanding of the fish. it seems when they grow faster, quicker they survive better. What we need out of the study from the science teams is focus on the fundamental reasons of salmon abundance."

The International Year of Salmon was announced in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2018 to take place in 2019. It is a chance for Pacific salmon harvesting countries to promote effective stewardship of ecosystems, says Beamish.

"We need the scientists to come up with hypotheses and test them. It costs $1.1 million to charter a Russian vessel, which we got reduced to $900,000. We have raised money from the Pacific Salmon Foundation, North Pacific Salmon Commission, and others, and the salmon farmers of B.C. have been major supporters."

The expedition's purpose is to take into account everything known, and work on the unknowns to find a way to accurately forecast returns, or even explain the size of returns, like record numbers of pinks in Russia, and shrinking numbers of chum in Japan.

The cooperating scientists from several nations will be storing the recovered data at University of British Columbia to be made available to all. "The aim is to discover fundamental mechanisms behind salmon migrations."


Beamish asks, "What are the probables? We will probably find Pacific salmon rear in the Gulf of Alaska in winter. Their abundance is determined by the end of the first winter. Specific populations grow in specific areas. Faster, quicker growth contributes to better survival."

Beamish says anomalous warming in the North Pacific in recent years has had a major impact on growth, but it's difficult to qualify the effect. Furthermore, hatchery production adds complications. There is a need to understand variables in the release of hatchery salmon. "You have to be more experimental about raising smolts to be released."

Whatever the outcome, next year promises to contain an exciting learning process related to the understanding of Pacific salmon dynamics in their ocean habitat.

Dr. Richard J. Beamish C.M., O.B.C., Ph.D., D.Sc.,F.R.S.C. http://www.richardbeamish.com/
Richard.beamish@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Freelance Writing by Mack McColl 2018, Updated 2020

Becoming a Red Seal Carpenter in Saskatchewan

Bradon Gardypie, 26, lives at Duck Lake, Saskatchewan, 45 minutes north of Saskatoon. He grew up at the Cree Nation reserve of Beardies and Okemasis, "I know some Cree, my Dad is a fluent Cree speaker." 

He graduated school and started working in the carpentry trade. "Most of the work was in Saskatoon, I had to go there for jobs in construction on housing, building schools, or hotels." He had a goal of getting the journeyman ticket in carpentry, "I struggled. I actually fell off a roof in my first year and broke my back. I had to take a year off and do all the physiotherapy." 

He went back to work and cycled through apprenticeship levels to become a journeyman carpenter, and eventually encountered a social media announcement by Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies. SIIT is a post-secondary educational institution in Saskatoon, and Mark Pollard, Dean of Trades and Technical Training was sponsoring a special course on preparing for the Red Seal exam. 

Pollard had hired Richard Dickenson of Integrated Carpentry Tutorials to put the two week course on in Saskatoon. "It was good dealing with Mark Pollard, and I got lucky. Actually I saw it online though social media when SIIT posted, they said they were trying out a new training program. It proved a good opportunity for me, Even though there was a maximum of 13 seats, they made one more seat available for me." 

Gardypie was a skilled workman, "I had my carpentry apprentice levels but on my first try at the Red Seal test I failed by two points, I got a 68." 

He took the SIIT course offered with Richard Dickenson instructing, which was delivered in a classroom in Saskatoon for two weeks. It was a highly informative two weeks, "Richard showed me the tricks to figuring out formulas. The class was two weeks and it was very good.

"Things I found difficult, especially math, Richard explained in a different way, and made it easy. We learned the ins and outs of dealing with complex problems, material for the Red Seal exam was explained, he gave us problem-solving scenarios, and we worked through the different types of formulas to get the right answers." 

Gardypie says, "I wrote the Red Seal the second time passed with 78 percent after two weeks of instruction." The change in his career path was instantaneous, "Immediately I was offered a job as Red Seal carpenter in the oil industry and I went from $28 to $38 an hour overnight. I went to Cold Lake, Alberta, and applied for a job in the oil sector."

He works shift 7 days on 7 days off. The work varies, "It's a lot of everything, concrete, finishing, renovation, maintenance, housing, roofing, camps, plants, oil plants, an oil sands project for Cenovus." It's a big project on a large area and lots of people as they are mining the oil."

The drive to Cold Lake is 4.5 hours, then they truck north an hour to camp and job. "I started a year and 2 months ago."

Gardypie wanted the shiftwork in this arrangement. It makes it possible for time camping, hunting, boating and recreation. "It's real nice to be out in the territory." Furthermore, "With that job, in six months of being employed, I was able to buy a  house in the town of Duck Lake (population 650)."

He says, "It's a pretty small town, a few hundred. We travel to Prince Albert or Saskatoon for shopping and groceries. I have a family, my wife and I have two kids, a 5 yr old (going into K-12) and 2 month old. My brother is apprenticing in carpentry. It's a good trade to have, carpentry applies to a lot of different construction scenarios."

Gardypie says, "We use the training Dickenson provided on all the job sites, and having the Red Seal allows more confidence on the job. The boss is more confident in me. When you are Red Seal you can instruct on the job site. You can teach others."

He plans to make business his future, "With the Red Seal I can apprentice others under me, start my own business, and get things going help the local guys into the trade, like my brother and cousin, they will learn the right experience in the trade." 

He credits SIIT's Pollard for finding the right guy to get the training done, "Richard Dickenson ended up making it a completely successful classroom experience."

Dangerfield visits Gabriola Island, Summer 2018

 

Another Hollywood Role For Secwepemc Star Grace Dove

 

Grace Dove steals some scenes as 'Ricki' in the Netflix movie release of Jul. 13, 2018, How It Ends (2018)  "A desperate father tries to return home to his pregnant wife after a mysterious apocalyptic event turns everything to chaos."

The movie stars Theo James and Forest Whitaker as they struggle to get to Seattle from Chicago in the middle of an apocalyptic scenario with lawless crazies dominating a dystopian society on the highways of America.

On their way to Seattle the two men stop at an Indian Reserve and meet a feisty lady named 'Ricki' who knows her way around cars, who wants to get to the west coast herself, and who accepts a cash offer to keep their automobile serviceable and roadworthy on the way to Seattle.

The trip west is made in Whitaker's Cadillac and the trio meets numerous earth-shattering obstacles on the way. 

Grace Dove is a Canadian actress trained in the film industry in Vancouver, other Canadian cities, and the United States, having grown up in Northern British Columbia, child of an American father and Secwepemc mother. Her dad is a musician and film maker and Grace has been working in various film and television mediums from a very early age.

It was just a couple years ago (2015) Grace Dove starred in The Revenant with Leonardo diCaprio and Tom Hardy. She was the wife of main character  Hugh Glass, in a setting of 1823 in the American west. 

While Grace Dove has come into her own as an actress in film, with two major roles in a now burgeoning movie career, IMDB describes her as follows: "Grace Dove is an Indigenous actress and television hostess, primarily known for her role as Hugh Glass' wife in the 2015 film The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Glass. 

"Dove is Secwepemc from Tsq'escen' (Canim Lake Band) near 100 Mile House, BC. She hosted "UnderEXPOSED TV" an action-sports documentary series, on the Aboriginal Peoples Television network for three seasons. Grace is currently (appearing) in a lead role in the Netflix thriller 'How It Ends' starring Theo James and Forest Whitaker."
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Can Deniz

Trivia

"Grace is Shuswap, originally from Canim Lake Indian Band and now travels between Vancouver, BC and Los Angeles, CA. She is Secwepemc residing in the Canadian province of British Columbia. She was born and raised in Prince George, British Columbia as the daughter of a filmmaker. There she attended High school and after graduating moved then to Vancouver to study acting at Vancouver Film School." 

Theatre One Presents: Maker of Monsters

I attended the Theatre One presentation of Maker of Monsters: The Extraordinary Life of Beau Dick, a film screening at the Avalon Cinema in North Nanaimo, Jul 9, 2018.

I was fortunate to befriend Beau Dick and it was a long-standing friendship. I had several periods of exposure to Beau and his methods of working in culture, the maintenance of Indigenous national power was coming from the very core of his being, it seemed to me.

He talked about the Homatsa society from time to time. It was a recurring topic of discussion and he was adamant about the importance Homatsa warriors had in the Potlatch culture of governance. Homatsa warriors were high on the totem pole in terms of contribution to international relations. It always seemed to me Beau was a liberal minded free trader, which, I think, is something he believed about Potlatch.

I enjoyed the movie at the Avalon Theatre in Nanaimo. I felt at home with the man on the screen while he was alive, I loved Beau like a brother. I felt as if I received one last chance to spend an evening in his illustrious company. I think the movie did him justice.

Beau met with Royals of the British Monarchy, Prime Ministers, world leaders, and hosted the most eclectic gathering in Alert Bay you could ever imagine. One period of winter back in 2009 he invited me to stay in his home, and again in 2011. I learned then Beau Dick loved to watch movies. I'm glad to see he is recalled so vividly in film.

Canadian West Coast Fishermen in Sustainable Fisheries

Goodbye My Friend Beau Dick

 We will treasure your art and I will treasure my memories of your great spirit.

One of the top contemporary Indigenous artists in the world, Beau Dick, famous Aboriginal artists, collectors, and others recognize his renown for representation of ancient Indigenous art, has passed away in 2017 on Canada's west coast.

This generous spirit was

Born: November 23, 1955, Kingcome Inlet, B.C.
Died: March 27, 2017, Vancouver, B.C.

I came upon this fellow Beau Dick in a place where people are steeped in stories of soul travel and soul capture, and witchcraft, and that is the old way, they say, which just so happens to be relatively preserved one ferry ride beyond 'the last outpost.' At times, to my way of thinking, "it's the only way."  Even with all this goodness to draw upon, the majority wear the yoke of modernity around their neck, so they eschew their own medicine, but Beau Dick was a man who set himself apart from modern beliefs.Beau Dick, Indigenous artist of the North West Pacific Coast tradition, was a leading proponent of the collective experience when it comes to builders and artisans cooperating on big projects. Beau saw a shared burden strongly reflecting the traditional life of Indigenous communities of the North West Pacific Coast. 

"The time-line in the experience is all shared," he explained, about working on cultural projects. Beau was a man with strong connections to the coastal past, born in 1955 and raised in Kingcome Inlet, B.C. (an inlet flowing deep into the mainland coast) there to grow up with a lot of culturally-grounded individuals.

Beau lived his first few years surrounded by extended family including Elders, uncles and aunts, and others who maintained the society of Big House Potlatch culture. They lived in personal contact with pristine surroundings of Kingcome Inlet, rooted in history, sustained by hard work and preserving a once-thriving culture by manufacturing various arts and crafts. 

Beau's early years were spent fully immersed in Kwakwala, the language of the nation. Beau sat amongst carvers, father, grandfather, and uncles, and listened to histories, legends, laws, jurisdiction, in Kwakwala, and learned the way things came to pass. Beau became vigilant about maintaining and passing along that knowledge for the rest of his life.

Beau was still young when the family took him to Vancouver to get serious book learning. He described a culture shock that lasted for a few adolescent years. Upon return to the Pacific North West the family was separated from Kingcome Inlet and Beau settled in Alert Bay, B.C., on Cormorant Island. His early life lessons began to percolate. 

Beau was a hereditary chief in the Kwakwaka’wakw society called Homatsa. It is the warrior society in coastal clans holding jurisdiction in this part of the world.

In 2009, Beau was at a culture camp on Yukusem (Hanson Island), a semi-remote site 15 km south of Alert Bay accessed by boat. It was an informal project supported by a lot of volunteers from the beginning of July through the month of August that year.

The island’s other occupants include the year-round Cultrally Modified Tree anthropology study area in the island's heights occupied by David Garrick. Also, Orcalab whale research station occupies the south-east corner; and a logging license is held over 70 hectares on the north east side around Dong Chong Bay. 

International kayak tours stopped beside the Yukusem culture camp at a lightly used campground to breath in the surroundings of Deep Bay. By the time tourist season arrived the Yukusem Culture Camp was in full bloom offering lessons to adventurous world travellers.

The culture camp on Yukusem was the brainchild of Beau Dick and the product of many hands. "It's a lot of teaching, cajoling, and inspiring, and convincing people the way forward is found by going through phases of knowing the past," explained Beau, willing and able to describe his extraordinary connections to the coastal past. Beau had worked with carvers of international reknown over the course of his life, Bill Reid included. 

Beau became a world-recognized carver of the Kwakwaka'wakw tradition and had the right to carve a Haida coat of arms and other styles because of his bloodlines from Tongass, Alaska. His great-grandmother was a high-ranking hereditary chief of the Tlingit and married a Hudson's Bay Factor who took her to Port Rupert, north end of Vancouver Island.

Oolican is an important fish to Indigenous people of the Pacific North West, a fish people use for many purposes, dietary and often healing. The oil is something they call 'gweena' and those of coastal bloodlines often have a bottle of oolican grease. "My grandmother inherited the right to first harvest of the oolican up Kingcome Inlet," said Beau, one balmy afternoon in the centre of the culture camp on Yukusem. "My great grandfather had inherited the right to 'first fish' from this river because his great grandfather brought the oolican to Kingcome Inlet." 

Brought the oolican to Kingcome Inlet? Beau's ancestor took two canoes out to sea and paddled to Bella Coola. Once there he obtained oolican fry and eggs which he carried in his second canoe and returned south (and east up the distinctively remote Kingcome Inlet) to seed the river with oolican. That gave family rights to the first fruits in perpetuity, a valuable asset. The claim is recognized in a large copper in Beau's possession as the physical testament.

Beau recounted stories passed down generations in relation to first contact with Europeans on the Pacific North West coast. One of these stories described the fate of the first domesticated cat, another, the chiefs reaction to the rum custom of the British Navy.

The Spanish sailed up the Pacific North West coast and explored the islands and archipelago as early as the mid-1500s. But the domestic cat made its first appearance at a Kwakwaka’wakw ville in the Pacific North West in the mid-1700s when the Spanish landed inside the Kwakwaka'wakw nation to begin conducting business.

This Kwakwaka'wakw nation of houses, clans, and villages occupies the mainland, several archipelago islands, and the top of Vancouver Island on both sides. When the Spanish sailed up to one of the well-populated villes they were immediately visited by the chief who greeted the ship’s captain with a cordial welcome to the Kwakwaka'wakw nation. At this first meeting the chief saw a cat capering onboard the Spanish ship.

The Kwakwaka'wakw chief was enthralled with the creature and the animal was brought before the chief for closer inspection. After playing with the cat the chief believed he had received possession of it.

Beau ascribes the captain’s devotion to his pet as enormous, and the captain of the Spanish ship refused to relinquish the cat. A couple of intrigues later, and the Kwakwaka'wakw chief was in full possession of the cat.

The infuriated captain of the Spanish ship soon unleashed a furious cannonade on the shore at the Kwakwaka’wakw community blowing apart war-canoes parked on the beach in front of the bighouses. Canoes were never in short supply in a Kwakwaka'wakw community and a few minutes later a flotilla coursed toward the Spanish ship.

The Kwakwaka'wakw surrounded the Spanish ship and returned the cannon balls. They demanded the Spanish perform this excellent feat again. They were not, however, returning the cat.

The Spanish sailed away and left the chief in possession of the curious animal and he announced a special event to be held in his bighouse. Soon a gathering of chiefs and clan members was assembled and the stage was set to unveil the cat.

The chief reached into a large cedar basket and grabbed the terrified cat and threw it some distance against a wooden post where it stuck. Everybody oh'd and ah'd while the cat did a couple of frantic loops and took off never to be seen again.

The Spanish spent a number of years exploring and mapping the Kwakwaka'wakw nation, said Beau. They left the territory with a legacy of sketches of people, villages, ship’s log entries, and a few Spanish place-names.

Soon the Spanish were usurped by the British who brought something other than a cat. Beau said the British Navy began snooping around the territory occasionally gunning the Spaniards out of the region and often stopping at houses of the chiefs of Kwakwaka'wakw communities.

The British had a custom of ending each occasion with the protocol of a shot of rum. At first the chiefs were kind of 'taken' but not all were happy with the custom and some were offended by the British insistence at imposing the bitter tasting liquid on these special occasions. Indeed a large argument ensued among the chiefs about whether to allow the British to stay. The argument that prevailed was, "Ah, let them stay. What harm can it do?" 

"Lineage is the most important part of our social structure," explained Beau. On Yukusem, conversation was supported by a chorus of nature, birds, crickets, frogs. "Talk about jurisdiction, I can describe the great divide. The Hudson's Bay Company conducted a slaughter of Haida people in the mid-1800s with poisoned blankets at the same time as the upper classes of England were amusing themselves by eating mummies," the remains of dead Egyptians.

The efforts of ‘blanket merchants’ failed to kill off the coastal people and small pockets of culture and Potlatch law continued to exist in tiny enclaves like Kingcome Inlet. By the 1930s the Kwakwaka’wakw were repeatedly jailed for Potlatches in hidden Big House societies, "My people were real rebellious. The Kwakwaka’wakw were tenacious about keeping their ways alive."

The rebellion would take dramatic form at times, for instance, when Beau's uncle Jimmy Dawson raised a totem pole for King George V, "as a celebration of the king’s coronation. And at the time of the event, the question was simple, What are the authorities going to do about that? Nothing. There was nothing they could do."

Beau credits his forefathers for being adept at the art of deception and using double entendre to send a message, "The pole stands beside the Anglican Church in Alert Bay today," he said, "along with the commemoration plaque for the English king."

Those days and weeks spent with Beau at Yukusem were highly instructive. I had visited the area before, and left and did not return for a few years. When I did, I found myself living like Bakwis, wildman of the woods, and perhaps I had become one of those. I stayed with a politically astute fellow named George, on Atli Road. Atli means bush or forest. George explained how the community exists under a communications embargo, what George called 'Coercion by economic sanction.' 

I stayed a few nights with George, which dragged into a couple of weeks but repeated visitations by a few party animals wore me down. That's when I took another refuge with Beau Dick, in his house/carving studio/classroom/crossroads on the beach. Instead of night owls and other faeries, I hung around artisans and culture mavins. They continue to carve a language that says a couple of things to God in statements that have no meaning to anybody but Him anymore. So the statements are not exactly meaningless, but who knows the mind of God?

Well, there is one fellow out in the territory possessing some deep insight. The study of Culturally Modified Trees (CMTs) is the study of human beings organized around rainforest resources. What David Garrick, anthropologist, uncovered on Hanson Island (Yukusem) is the "transgenerational" management of forests by Indigenous people at the northern entrance to the Inside Passage. 

This transgenerational management of forests was comprised of a complex arrangement of separate preserves under jurisdiction managed to both maximize and distribute essential resources. Social groups conducted specialized horticulture within groves of cedar on Yukusem’s 16 sq. km..

One aspect of the cultivation involved shaping cedar trees to produce tree bark in surplus while keeping the tree alive. They maximized cedar bark production stripping bark lengthwise up a trunk, thus allowing the tree to heal, thrive, and produce surplus bark. This strategy illustrates how cedar bark was a staple. Cedar bark was produced for an apparently endless array of manufactured goods. The rule was to cultivate cedars into giant sources of raw material for production of manufactured goods. In the transgeneration aspect, people of Yukusem 1,350 years ago cultivated a grove of trees to furnish Beau Dick with raw material in 2009.

Beau's Alert Bay studio involves a lot of interaction with local artists and carvers. A couple of these artists are devoted to Jesus. I might have tried to explain that I do, really, believe in Jesus. In order to steal this continent and launch a genocide they needed an inside job. That's how Jesus enters. He's the inside job. 

Beau finds this line of reason amusing but my friendship with Wayne becomes elusive at the point when I am demonstrating heresies in a couple short, disturbing arguments. I rarely feel friendship in the morning hours until Wayne has had a gallon of coffee to derail his brain. 

There is considerable interaction and especially rancorous moment during which I say things like, "I cannot get divinely inspired by a manager of a sheep abattoir," and Wayne replies about ghosts not supposing to have voices, while painting messages in all kinds of uninterpreted ways, language being used like a sharp detailing knife. Wayne reiterates I should inhabit the vicinity like a ghost.

During the drunk and smoke fuelled evenings up Atim Road, George called the Kwakwaka'wakw communities part of a League of Autonomous Collectives, formerly tight competitive, industrious organizations oriented to acquire by trade. 

"And warfare," according to Beau, who informs me the organization was codified in Wakashan, composed in a legal motif hieroglyphically rendered, a language emanating coast-wide (which Wayne describes as "the longest coast-line in the world.")

The archipelago was home to people cultivating immense riches. They had growing populations, educated in craftsmanship like house building, canoe-making, weaving, carving, resource extraction, a group of nations thriving on abundance. 

I am tempted to suggest the hieroglyphic language carved on poles, painted on house fronts, sewn into chilkat blankets, was on the verge of a continental breakout. "There is a strong desire to build something but an awareness that others have standards which may be too high to be met by the revival of a cultural experience," Beau explained.

The culture camp on Yukusem had been a collective of builders and artisans volunteering to live rustic, practically remote, and, says Beau, "The question was, are you a camper? Camping is by definition a completely interdependent experience. The burden is shared and activities are shared. The time-line in the experience is all shared."

Beau returns to story-telling, "The Bella Coolas were primarily Salishan people who over a period of time had occupied the area up Burke Channel, halfway along the B.C. Pacific coast, and after this came a period of encroachment upon the Kwakwaka’wakw territory," Beau explained, for Bella Coolas had long been envious of Kingcome Inlet resources, he said.

It was therefore predictable to Homatsa society a large party of Bella Coolans would arrive at the entrance to the territory at Gilford Island. The arrival of the lead Bella Coolan party was made in peace and bearing gifts, a disarming presentation drawing the Homatsa society into a lull, while a second party descended and destroyed the Gilford Island settlement and left many heads on sticks and took Kwakwaka’wakw  women away to Bella Coola.

Beau continued, "These women retained their names and their titles, but only gradually did the truth about their origins begin to emerge." He explained family status in a coastal nation is paramount and hierarchy composing the society is immutable. "Eventually the elevated status of those women and their offspring emerged and altered the face of a Salishan principality."

Mamalillikullu and the Haida were accustomed to crossing the Kwakwaka’wakw  waters every year during the summer to conduct trade missions with the Cowichan and Salishan nations. When Hudson Bay Company arrived and a fort was established at Fort Rupert the HBC immediately set about usurping Kwakwaka’wakw jurisdiction. This made peace untenable, said Beau, once Haida traders arrived at Fort Rupert and bypassed traditional protocol of stopping at the clanhouses of Kwakwaka’wakw chiefs. Instead they opted to gather around the HBC fort and ignore customary exchanges with Kwakwaka’wakw.

In response to this diplomatic snub Kwakwaka’wakw messengers spread word and soon Homatsa society arranged their own reception. The Haida were intercepted as they continued a southward journey through the Inside Passage. The interception occurred at modern day Kelsey Bay deep in the present day Johnstone Strait. It was here they were surrounded and slaughtered. The heads of the Haida chiefs were taken back to Fort Rupert to the women who stood on the beach holding out their aprons.

As the Kwakwaka’wakw rowed past they tossed the heads ashore, said Beau, onto the aprons of the women. The head of one Haida chief tore through the apron of his wife and rolled along the beach, and the story is told, he was still trying to get away from the Kwakwaka’wakw.

Language was extinguished in an onslaught of flames and reeducation. The systemic racism remains intact via modern schools. Dissidents are held inside internment camps and gulag reservations are filled with dissident elements of a remaining population, some of those governed by a re-constituted national identity expunging traditional values, others suffering the lash of authority but defying all descriptions of servitude.

Friendships for me are illusive but people on this Indian Reservation come in waves to visit and work and confer with Beau Dick. It is a multi-user art studio, Wayne's, Marcus', Sean's, and tonight Thomas Bruce paints here. I once stayed at Beau Dick's two or three months a year previous. I have been here several times. I've been hanging around since the 90s. Several people are acquainted with me. Sean carves and paints a modern version which Beau Dick encourages as avant garde, and they are saleable pieces.

As I sit around, Sean tells me he is leaving shortly to spend Christmas in Port Hardy, a neighbouring town. Wayne inhabits the workplace daily but with the permanence of a sphinx. Beau Dick produces several pieces at a time, ruminates on new ones, uses a vast library and historical record in his designs. The library includes Beau Dick and Wayne's own knowledge orally transmitted and accompanied by images.

I am making my fifth, sixth, journey to the territory. It is now December 23. My activities this visit included scrapping with George's gang (testing my aptitude for listening), but Beau Dick and his immense Homatsa knowledge keeps the warcanoe on an even keel, his strength, and endless rounds of conversation in a circulating fashion in the studio, makes the stay worthwhile, such as when Wayne says, "There are six species of wolf on the north west coast. They can swim. They eat brains." I restrain myself from saying, "I guess you're safe."

On this Christmas Eve I am ending the visit to the Indian Reservation. Beau has been aloof my whole visit. This last evening was one of the rare occasions we are alone in the house. I am leaving in a few minutes. "I had a dream the other night and in this dream I was in Kingcome. I held a spear and several of us were holding spears. We had a big black cat in front of us. Eight of us circled around this cat and we weren't attacking. We were cornering the cat to put it in a cage." 

"One night in the 1970s," I replied," I did a hallucinogenic drug, some organic mescaline, and 'transformed' into a puma. I had been injured the year before and the experience stuck with me, because, ya know, Beau, a wounded animal wants to kill every in sight."

Beau went to another room in the tiny house and came back with a t-shirt, smiled broadly, and he held it up, "This is you." It says, 'Ruined.' We laugh under a cloud of smoke. I leave a minute later to catch the last ferry of the night. It was the last time I ever saw Beau Dick. He was my friend. May he Rest In Peace.

Beau's daughter Kerri Dyck

Beau Dick- Maker of Monsters! Teller of Stories

The study of Culturally Modified Trees is the study of human beings working to organize themselves around rainforest resources. What David Garrick, anthropologist, has uncovered is the "transgenerational" management of Hanson Island (Yukusem) by First Nations at the north end of the Inside Passage, and it is amazing.

This transgenerational management of First Nation forest resources in coastal rainforests was comprised of a complex arrangement of activities. 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 amazing things horticultural. David Garrick uncovered cedar-shaping in CMTs during his long and fruitful tenure of archaeology onsite at Yukusem. This amazing horticulture involves planning that spans centuries.

This horticulture 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. These First Nations maximized cedar bark production for a particular resource and did so in a way that left the cedar tree to heal, thrive, and produce even surplus bark. It was a strategy of development that occurred because cedar bark was a staple product in their social development. This cultural product was used in an apparently endless array. The rule for many centuries, even millennia, was to cultivate giant cedars to make trees produce surplus cedar bark into a raw material for production of manufactured goods.

Nothing was left to chance or went to waste. The term old growth forest was meaningless to a culture that practised continuous and highly specialized cultivation in the growth of the forests over millennia. Even a burnt forest was an opportunity to exploit a different set of highly prized resources. Everything 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. David Garrick’s maps point 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 for creating surplus bark. From concentrations of CMTs of this magnitude it becomes obvious 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 2008. Also in this transgenerational context, those people provided a chain of modern evidence to Harry Alfred and Don Svanvik, CMT researchers from Alert Bay, B.C., who are able to clarify First Nation present day jurisdiction over Yukusem cedar groves. The vital (and missing) evidence was produced from messages in trees hundreds of years old. The fingerprints of this jurisdiction have been uncovered in all the lands and forests of B.C., even so, it was a long and arduous 20th century for the folks around Yukusem (as everywhere).

Only in 2004 did the First Nations recover their jurisdiction over Yukusem. CMTs studied in this way by David Garrick therefore provided scientific resources and empirical evidence giving First Nations the necessary proof of a their missing jurisdiction.

It is odd to note, however, how there was no apparent conflict over the management of the Yukusem resources until about 1930, says Garrick. His archaeological timeline 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 only taking a few trees from Yukusem’s treasured groves, and David reports they apparently left cedar trees untouched, leaving them to the cedar shapers who used the resources in specially managed (and closely regarded and cultivated) patterns.

The two management paradigms co-existed! It required an exercise of government policy to alienate the First Nations from their ownership, management, and jurisdiction over the cedar shaping activities of their culture. From the time such draconian policies were introduced until Yukusem Heritage Society was formed in 2004 the Yukusem cedar groves were facing dire consequences. David Garrick’s archaeological study was the only thing standing in their way. In a pleasant turn since his studies began a series of scientific facts have unleashed a people to exert their sovereignty.

An even more compelling figure in the territory, now, sadly, dearly departed, was Beau Dick. He was a some sort of timeless person, He danced in the Big House. He danced in the forest. He was musical, played guitar, wrote songs. He told amazing stories. Some of them even related to his culture.

Beau Dick is recognized as a masterful artist of the Pacific Coast tradition, a leading proponent of the collective experience in producing the art of Coastal Nations . He believed builders and artisans cooperating on big projects was naturally a shared burden, strongly reflecting the traditional values of the traditional nations. “The time-line in the experience is all shared,” he once explained about the intricate details of working his branch of cultural awareness.

Beau was a man with direct connections to the coastal past. Born in 1955 and raised in Kingcome Inlet, B.C. (a deep  inlet flowing into the coast), where he stayed until 1965. In the first half of the previous century it was the site of a remote fish cannery and a lot of culturally-oriented individuals.

Beau lived his first ten years with extended family including Elders, uncles and aunts, and others who maintained society of the Big House. There are societies organized in Potlatch culture, the purveyors of their history are 'artists.'

In Kingcome Inlet, Beau clearly described, they lived in close personal contact with the pristine surroundings in Kingcome Inlet, which worked like a petri dish of culture remote enough to sustained in the face of draconian laws about Potlatch, Nationhood, Language, and livelihoods. They continued by hard work, s striving in the conduct of various cultural activities and art forms while they participated in the fisheries and logging in their traditional territories.

These early times for Beau were spent fully immersed in Kwakwala, the language of the nation. He sat among the carvers, these were his father, grandfather, and uncles, acting  secretly in traditional societies, Beau listened  to a steady stream of conscious histories, legends,  laws, jurisdiction in Kwakwala, and Beau learned  the way things cultural came to pass and became a significant impressario of the way cultural things would become.

It was a purity of vision, and hugely perceived for the quality of the artform, which conformed  to direct interpretations of cultural facts, a tangible historical brand of knowledge about the  ways and means of the coast. He was the most knowledgeable historian I ever met.

When Beau was 10 years old the family sent him to Vancouver to live with aunt and uncle so he could get some serious book learning.  He was in  culture shock for a few adolescent years.  Upon return to the Pacific Northwest the  family was separated from Kingcome Inlet  and Beau settled into Alert Bay, B.C..

The importance of his early life lessons began to percolate. He came to be a man who lives to learn, and who passes along the lessons to the entire strata of  Indigenous people, and, equally, uniformly able to impart those lessons to English speaking people, and the lessons were  masterfully illustrated with iconic artistic manifestations.

He would give you a voluminous account an image, a manifestation of art, how it contained specific responsibility to co-exist with legendary stories. His art was a shared experience, a modernized  tradition, the art was responsible for keeping  a nation existentially important in the Broughton Archipelago.

Beau is a hereditary chief in the Kwakawak Awak society called Homatsa, they call it the 'cannibal society.'  I don't know why. It's a warrior society in the  coastal clans, they worked in groups of six, and they ran across the land where they held jurisdiction, and plyed the waters.

They conduct a particular form of economy and governance called the Potlatch.

In the lands and waters of this country, it was their history told in the art prior to the imposition of the Indian Act and Beau was able to reproduce the lost histories in story, song, dance, and art.

Beau Dick points at sketch of the Yukusem culture camp

The first cat in Kwaguilth

Beau Dick recounts a couple of stories passed down by generations in relation to first contact with Europeans on the coast of the Pacific North West. One of them describes the fate of the first domesticated feline, and another the chiefs reaction to the rum custom of the British Navy.

The Spanish had sailed up the outside coast of the Pacific North West islands and archipelagos as early as the mid-1500s. But the domestic cat made its first appearance at a Kwakwaka’wakw ville in the Pacific North West in the mid 1700s when the Spanish landed inside the Kwakwaka'wakw nation to begin conducting business.

This nation of Houses, clans, and villages occupies the mainland, several islands in an archipelago, and the top of Vancouver Island, both sides. When the Spanish sailed up to one of the well-populated villes they were immediately visited by the chief who greeted the ship’s captain with a cordial welcome to the Kwakwaka'wakw nation. At this first meeting the chief saw a cat capering onboard the Spanish ship.

The Kwakwaka'wakw chief was enthralled with the creature and the animal was brought before the chief for his closer inspection. After playing with the cat for a spell the chief believed he had received possession of it.

Beau ascribes the captain’s devotion to his pet as enormous, and the captain of the Spanish ship refused to relinquish it. A couple of intrigues later the Kwakwaka'wakw chief was in full possession of the cat.

The infuriated captain of the Spanish ship soon unleashed a cannonade on the shore at the Kwaguilth community blowing apart several war-canoes parked on the beach in front of the bighouses. Canoes were never in short supply in a Kwakwaka'wakw community and a few minutes later a flotilla coursed toward the Spanish ship.

The Kwaguilth surrounded the Spanish and returned the cannon balls. They began demanding that the Spanish perform this excellent feat once again. (They were not, however, returning the cat.)

The Spanish sailed away and left the chief in possession of the curious animal and he announced a special event to be held in his bighouse. Soon a gathering of chiefs and important clan members and associates had been assembled and the stage was set to unveil the cat.

The chief reached into a large cedar basket and grabbed the terrified cat and threw it some distance against a wooden post where it stuck. Everybody oh'd and ah'd while the cat did a couple of frantic loops and took off never to be seen again.

The Spanish spent a number of years exploring and mapping their explorations into the Kwakwaka'wakw nation. They left the territory with a legacy of sketches of people, villages, ship’s log entries, and a few Spanish place-names.

Soon the Spanish were superseded by the British who brought something other than a cat. Beau said the British Navy began stopping around the territory occasionally gunning the Spaniards out of the region and often stopping at the houses of the chiefs of Kwakwaka'wakw communities.

The British had a custom of ending each occasion with the certain protocol of a shot of rum. At first the chiefs were kind of 'taken' but not all were happy with the custom and some were offended by the British insistence at imposing the bitter tasting liquid on these special occasions.

Indeed a large argument ensued among the chiefs about whether to allow the British to stay. The argument that prevailed was, "Ah, let them stay. What harm can it do?" Beau Dick harbour’s little doubt that there may be an element of conspiracy in the rum strategy.

B.C.'s Devastating Wildfires

Wildfire Protection Planning

As the fires continue to burn across B.C. and folks in far away places like USA are complaining about the excessive smoke, it's time to consider what the hell happened this summer to make this province go up in flames.

 As of August 8, 2017, "Wildfires are continuing to tear through British Columbia one month after the provincial government declared a state of emergency. Skrepnek said the province has seen 904 fires since April 1 and most of the major blazes wreaking havoc are ones that prompted the state of emergency declaration July 7,"

 Source, Times Colonist 

(http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c-wildfires-news-roundup-air-quality-interactive-map-fire-danger-1.1992958)

Stephen Miller Talks Statue of Liberty Facts (Pauly Shore):

 I did not know that Pauly Shore could act. But there it is.