Rosa Nutkana

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," says Juliet when she hears that Romeo is a dreaded Montague. But many roses do not smell sweet at all. In their hybridization, they've lost something.

The Nootka Rose is both beautiful to behold and heavenly to smell. Its scent is as strong as any essential oil, and I cannot pass by without stopping to smell the roses. 

This ancient wild rose is native to the Pacific Coast from Northern California to Alaska. 

Rosa Nutkana was named after Nootka Sound by one of the early explorers to the coast who first saw it there. I think, possibly by the biologist aboard Captain Cook's ship, HMS Resolution. Cook was astronomer and scientist on this his third voyage but William Anderson served as biologist and naturalist. They traveled with a sister ship, HMS Discovery, piloted by Captain Clerke, and the two, who were searching for a Northwest Passage to the North Atlantic, were in a naming/claiming frenzy.

They arrived in Yuquot by accident after sailing north from California and missing The Strait of Juan de Fuca. Then ended up staying and trading for sea otter pelts from March 29 until April 26 in 1778. Since this rose blooms in early spring, it's possible they were in bloom during the month the crew stayed.

I'd like to know what the Nuu-chah-nulth People call this rose. It's said the rose is used medicinally and the hips are bitter but edible. If anyone knows its true name or how it's used, please leave a comment. 

Of course, if you don't live on the Northwest Pacific Coast, you likely know this wild and beautiful rose by another name. I've seen it called Prairie Rose. Are there wild roses where you live? What do you call them? 

 

 

Standing on the Curve of Time Once More

 

Since it's Mother's Day here in Canada, I'd like to celebrate a daring Adventure Mom. I first discovered Capi Blanchet's British Columbia adventure classic in a thrift store way back in 2002. Her literary tales captured me then, just as they do today. 

The title derives from Maeterlinck's theory that Time is a fourth dimension, relative to each of us, and can be plotted on a curve. This makes sense to me. Time is anything but linear. We weave in circles and spirals through other dimensions.

"Standing in the Present, on the highest point of the curve, you can look back and see the Past, or forward and see the Future, all in the same instant" (1). 

This small, yet significant, book is a compilation of stories remembered by Capi—a nickname she took from her boat, Caprice—that chronicle her adventures exploring the British Columbia coast in the 1920s-1930s with her five children. I say loosely because I read now that her stories were highly fictionalized. Still, what she wrote is travel memoir and something now lauded as Creative Nonfiction. 

According to Cathy Converse, author of Following the Curve of time: the Untold Story of Capi Blanchet, Capi's depressed husband sailed off alone to Saltspring Island in September 1926 and never returned. The empty Caprice was discovered with his clothing onboard but his body was never recovered. Blanchet was in her mid-thirties. To earn money to support her five children, Capi rented their seaside Little House near Sydney for four months each summer and took them boating. The 25' Caprice was so small, they were only allowed to bring one bathing suit, one change of clothing, and one set of pajamas each. For the most part, they lived off land and sea, fishing and gathering, and were fortunate to meet generous homesteaders who sometimes offered them all the fruit they could pick and carry. 

Capi was not only a risk-taker and independent woman, her prose is beautiful crafted and interwoven with natural history, archaeology, and dialogue. AND she can fix a boat engine—something I'm most impressed with. Honestly, I'd love to pilot a boat but the thought of a breakdown out around the islands terrifies me. There were times too, that Blanchet was forced to row the dinghy for hours with Caprice in tow. She writes of lighthouses (most were built then), adverse weather and seas, and navigating tide rips like Skookumchuk and Seymour Narrows. They traversed rugged inlets with steep mountain walls and channels too deep to set an anchor, sighted bear and cougar, and survived all the strait threw at them. 

Like her contemporary, Emily Carr, Blanchet discovered abandoned Kwakwaka'wak and Coast Salish villages, big houses, white shell middens, post carvings, hanging tree graves, artifacts, even bones. Out of respect, she doesn't reveal the locations of these places. 

The book began as a series of articles Blanchet sold to yachting magazines, Blackwood's Magazine in Edinburgh, and the Atlantic Monthly. Perhaps that's how they became fictionalized. In the 1950s, she compiled The Curve of Time which was published by Blackwood & Sons in 1961. It's sad that only six months later, Capi died at her typewriter while working on a second memoir of their adventures at the Little House. She was just seventy years old, but it seems to me, most of those seventy years were packed with adventure and daring. 

My 30th Anniversary Special Edition was published and introduced by Gray Campbell in 1968: White Cap Books, North Vancouver, B.C. 

For more information, here's a Tyee Review of Converse's book, Following the Curve of time: the Untold Story of Capi Blanchet.

Chrome Island: Coal and Creepy Crawlies

 Not long ago, I visited my writer-friend, JP McLean, on Denman Island, and we went for a walk through Boyle Point Provincial Park. At the top of the hilly trail we glanced down and there was Chrome Island Lighthouse with its red roofs and white buildings—a Coast Guard trademark. 

I'm still entranced by lighthouses. Each has such a fascinating history intertwined with the building of this province. Chrome Island is no exception.

The island first appeared on navigational maps in the 1860s and was called Yellow Rock because its light sandstone surface glows golden in the sunlight. Naturally, navigators weren't the first people to notice this phenomenon. Indigenous People since time immemorial have honoured the rock and carved petroglyphs of mythical creatures into its surface.

As is often the case, most of the petroglyphs were blasted off in the name of progress; in this case: coal. Nanaimo was a big coal town and nearby Fanny Bay the location of suppliers. Ships bound for Asia would stop at Fanny Bay to load up with coal before heading west across the Pacific.

The original lighthouse, built in 1890, was fifty-five feet tall and its beam could be seen for seventeen miles. With the light—first lit on New Years Day 1891—came the first lightkeeper—Tom H. Piercy. The Piercy family stayed eight years and raised their ten children on the two-acre rock. Can you imagine? They had a boat of course and could row to Denman Island to buy food and supplies. No helicopter drops for them. Can you imagine what that might be like? In a medical emergency, the nearest hospital was in Cumberland, which meant rowing from Chrome to Denman and then to Vancouver Island, horse and buggies in between. 

Despite the light, keepers have witnessed shipwrecks. Captain Yorke sailed the Alpha into Yellow Rock on December 16, 1900. She was carrying 630 tons of salted dog salmon bound for Japan. The Quartermaster and twenty-five crew crossed a rope line to safety but the stubborn captain, who'd been warned that he was sailing into a light, refused to leave his ship. Yorke and five crew drowned when the mast snapped in the pounding sea. 

There must be a ghost story here somewhere.

A new flashing tower light replaced the original stationary light in 1920, but the poor keepers didn't get a new abode for another eight years. The dwelling, by that time, was infested with creepy crawlies who raided the house at night so the poor keepers couldn't sleep. Beetles, wood mites, wood lice, and other sundry insects appeared everywhere: in their food, in their hair, and in their beds. 

Thank goodness, I didn't have that experience. The only infestation I remember was mice. I was constantly having to trap them in the basement. I won't say where. But mice and rats are pretty common in the best of neighbourhoods.

Finally, in 2000, an archaeological study provided enough evidence—shell midden, bones, and petroglyphs—to declare Chrome Island a protected archaeological site. 

Chrome Island is an oasis at the southern entrance of Baynes Sound in the Strait of Georgia. I'd love to work there one day. I'm curious whether any of the keepers ever experienced any hauntings there as they have done in other lighthouses. 

Do you have any lighthouse haunting stories? If so, leave a quick story in the comments. 

Thanks to Lighthouse Friends for all their wonderful research on B.C. lighthouses.

Logging Traditional Nuchatlaht Territory on Nootka Island

B.C. argues Nuchatlaht Nation ‘abandoned’ its territory. Lawyer reminds court ‘land was stolen’

In the first-ever title case argued in B.C. since the province introduced UNDRIP legislation, Crown lawyers assert the nation lost territorial rights by not consistently occupying their lands. Experts say the argument is strange, possibly illegal and a step back for reconciliation. (Nov 2020) Read on for details. (Article written by Judith Lavoie, Victoria, BC)

https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-nuchatlaht-title-case-undrip/

This sounds to me like the government is in bed with the logging company and they're bent on stalling until they've clear-cut the land and destroyed the environment. 

Ancestral Remains Unearthed at Nootka Lighthouse

When 1,000 year old ancestral remains were unearthed at Nootka Light Station in 2018, Mowachaht/Muchalaht elders made plans to reinter them with a private traditional ceremony. It's thought the remains were moved unknowingly to the light station by keepers preparing a garden bed on rocky San Rafael Island.

The bones belong to a woman and an adolescent. Mother and child?

Elder, Ray Williams, who's lived at Yuquot all his life on the same land his ancestors lived, suggested a traditional pre-Christian cave burial. Read the full story here.

Caves with Mowachaht and Spanish burial sites exist in the area of Friendly Cove. This is a special place. If you ever find remains, please do not disturb them. These graves are sacred. This land is sacred. 

This 1946 photo of the pebble beach shows the existing cemetery.

Here's a wonderful archived photograph of the Yuquot summer village.

The Washing of Tears by Hugh Brody is a heartwarming NFB film about the people of Yuquot.

I can't explain how touched I am by this place.

Uchuck III Cruise to Nootka

My experience working as a lighthouse keeper at Nootka was one of the best I had. This is an incredibly beautiful place with a complex history. When I decided to write a paranormal mystery set at a lighthouse, naturally Nootka or Yuquot as it's known to the indigenous people who live there, was the setting I thought of first. Now, as I'm working on this story, I'm going back through my lighthouse journals and old photos, many of which are posted on this blog. What I didn't post were the photos from my research trip back to Nootka the summer of 2018.

The state of the world is in flux, but Canada still has many beautiful wild places we treasure. At the time of writing the Uchuck III is still sailing to Nootka Sound. The Uchuck III delivers cargo, food, and supplies to many people in remote places who depend on her. That is why, I imagine, she's still sailing. If you're interested, check Get West Adventure Cruises for updates and to call for reservations.

Because it's a day trip, we stayed overnight in Campbell River (on Vancouver Island, British Columbia) and drove out early the next morning to meet the ship at the dock in Gold River.

Uchuck means healing waters. “The Uchuck III can move along at twelve knots, and carry up to 100 day-passengers and 70 tons of general cargo including three or four cars” (Get West.) We watched from the upper deck as the crew loaded supplies using a crane for the folks at Yuquot. This included a new red ATV that was immediately put to work when we arrived.

When we were underway at last, the two-hour cruise took us through Muchalaht Channel past controversial fish farms and logging swaths, around Bligh Island (named for a young Captain Bligh of Bounty fame), and through Cook Channel into Friendly Cove.

We were fortunate. It was a perfect day of sun and fair breezes and the calm waters certainly felt healing. The captain said that humpback whales often come into Muchalaht Channel. All around Nootka Sound, salmon fishermen were hoisting their catch to show off their prizes.


In 2014, I lived at the Nootka Light Station for two months (in April/May) while working as a relief lighthouse keeper. Although it was a short stint, catching sight of the white and red Coastguard buildings felt like coming home. We had three hours to explore the Yuquot site, which includes an amazing pebble beach, a portion of the Nootka Trail that leads past a graveyard and rentable cabins at Jewitt Lake, the old church which has now been reclaimed by the Indigenous community as a cultural centre, and of course, the light station.

The long pier was teaming with people as the Mowachaht/Muchalaht community was holding their annual Spirit Summerfest campout in the grassy area near the church and many friends and relatives had come out aboard the Uchuck III to visit. There was also a celebration in the church as this year marked the 240th Anniversary of Captain James Cook’s arrival at Nootka Sound.

As the story goes, Cook arrived in what he first called King George’s Sound in the spring of 1778 with the Resolution and Discovery. Making the usual European blunder, he named the people and the place based on his suppositions. The Indigenous people—who’d been living here for thousands of years—called out and told the captain to go around to avoid the reefs. More precisely, it happened like this:

“Captain Cook’s men, asking by signs what the port was called, made for them a sign with their hand, forming a circle and then dissolving it, to which the natives responded ‘Nutka’. No.tkak or no.txak means “circular, spherical” (Sapir and Swadesh 1939:276) in The Whaling People. 

Though the village was teaming with people, Cook claimed the land for Britain. The British soon called all the people there, the Nootka, though there were 1500 Mowachacht people living in villages in the area. Yuquot was the summer home of Maquinna’s people and they wintered down the channel in Tahsis. The Mowachacht—“people of the deer”—began a lucrative (especially for the British) trade in sea otter pelts. In the cultural centre (the old white church) you can see yellowing photographs of the original village.

Captain Cook’s claim on Yuquot set the stage for later conflicts between the Indigenous people; as well as the Spanish who built Fort San Miguel on the rocks beside the lighthouse. Sadly, within forty years, the sea otter disappeared.

On our return voyage, we sailed through the more turbulent waters of Zuchiarte Channel. I went up to the wheelhouse to ask about the ship, but Captain Adrien said that he’d only answer my questions if I took a turn at the wheel. So, under his direction, I steered the Uchuck III through King’s Passage.

The wheelhouse is beautiful and it was a thrill to turn the wheel two spokes starboard and then back to port to straighten her out while keeping my eyes on the bow.

The fabulous photo below was taken by Low Light Mike, August 28, 2010. One of the crew had just polished the engine-telegraph (to the left of the wheel) a piece from BCCS's Princess Victoria,a River Clyde vessel that sailed around Cape Horn in 1904.



We arrived back in Gold River at 5:30pm. It was a long glorious day, and I recommend taking a voyage aboard the Uchuck III so you can get a taste of history firsthand. Below is a site map of Yuquot and a directional map to Gold River. All maps Friendly Cove and Map to Gold River

As I write my book, my mind naturally drifts back to my experiences at Yuquot.

Return to Nootka

Four years ago at this time, I was working as a relief lighthouse keeper for the Canadian Coast Guard. I'd taken a year off teaching to explore and destress and try something new. Between March 27 and May 23, I stayed at Nootka and recorded my adventures, and misadventures, in a journal and a blog. This was my house for eight weeks.

 I've been thinking about that time a lot lately. This summer, I am planning to take the Uchuck III day cruise from Gold River to Friendly Cove, so I can walk those beaches and trails once again. This is a photo of the Uchuck III docked at Friendly Cove. This will be a brillliant way to experience the sound and the cove where so many historic events occurred. Plus, you get three hours to hike and explore the beaches, trails, graveyards, lake, and the lighthouse.

I had hoped to visit with Mark, the lighthouse keeper I worked with at that time, but apparently Mark and Joanne retired last September. So, all I can say is "Congratulations!" from afar.

People often ask me: what do lighthouse keepers do?

This video and article written and recorded last August with Mark and Joanne brings it all back to me. It is a beautiful landscape, rife with history—some of which is tragic—and I feel blessed that I was able to spend some quality time there.

This is my post from April 22, 2014.

And this is the pebble beach—one of my favourite places on earth. I can't wait to walk here again this summer.