The White Church (part 2)

The weathered church that stands today in Friendly Cove was erected in 1956, for the purposes of “educating” the people of Yuquot. In the vestibule, old plaques and photographs are displayed, memories and keys to the significance of this place. One article in particular captured my attention. It tells a familiar story; one of loss, and betrayal, and exploitation.

In 1904, the entire Nootka Whalers’ Washing House, a 5x6 metre building, plus its contents was “purchased” from two elders and spirited away under cover of night. It was whaling season, and most of the community was off at work. A shady deal, no doubt, that the whalers would have objected to had they known. George Hunt, working under the famous anthropologist, Franz Boas, orchestrated the deal, which reportedly gained two men $500.00 but lost a community something sacred and precious. It ended up in the American Museum in New York, and has stayed there, in the basement, for the past century. This is an image of the contents:

What follows is a partial transcript of a framed article hanging inside the church. “Reviving Dark Forces” was written by Mark Hume and published in the Vancouver Sun, Saturday, May 25, 1991.

The shrine includes 60 carved human figures, 25 human skulls and two wooden whales. Native legend says the prayers and rituals practised by shamans gave hunters the magic they needed to find whales; it also made the sea send dead whales to the beaches around Nootka Sound.

What the magic was, and how it worked, may be beyond comprehension today, but Inglis says that looking on the faces of the shrine it is easy to believe it once had immense power. [At the time of writing, Richard Inglis was Head of Anthropology at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria.]

The people of Nootka Island who used the shrine believe it still has that power. One of the native concerns now under discussion is whether such dark forces should ever be brought into the open again.

“It’s incredibly powerful stuff,” says Inglis of the magic attributed to the shrine.

“One of the issues is whether you want to bring that power out again.”

The shrine, a magic house that was considered “a great treasure” of the Nootka people, was in continual use for 300 years before it was collected by the American Museum in 1904.

Generations of Nootka whalers performed rituals at the shrine which at times drew its black magic from human sacrifice and grave robbing.

Inglis, who has been researching the monument for several years, says the native community has mixed emotions about the shrine.

Some want it returned to Yuquot, to be shown in a museum or cultural centre. Others think it should never be put on public display again. 

European mariners turned whale hunting into a deadly, highly mechanized science that brought world populations to the verge of extinction. But in the native world, during the shrine’s centuries of power, killing whales was a dangerous job that required the help of spirits.

Anthropologists say the Nootka developed the most spectacular sea hunting techniques on the entire Pacific coast. Travelling in large, ocean-going canoes, they killed whales with harpoons that had cutting heads made of mussel shells; sealskin buoys were connected to long lines made from animal sinew.

The techniques for hunting—and the magic—were cherished family secrets passed down from chiefs to their sons. In addition to the hunters, the Nootka had whale-ritualists, shamans so powerful it was said they didn’t have to hunt whales at sea, but magically drew to shore those that had died from natural causes.

Tsaxwasap,a man with great shamanistic powers, was one of those who first used the shrine. He intensified the power of the magic house by bringing dead bodies to it, and live infants stolen from their mothers. When Tsaxwasap inherited the shrine it had only four human skulls.

In her book, From the Land of the Totem Poles, Aldona Jonaltis, of the American Museum, says Tsaxwasap kidnapped infants and robbed graves to build the shrine’s power.

“He began removing from graves the skulls of men who had been long dead and then placed 40 skulls on the right-hand side of the shrine, 40 skulls on the left-hand side, eight skulls atop sticks on the right side, eight skulls atop sticks on the left, and four in front of the house to serve as watchmen. Then Tsaxwasap found 12 dried up corpses of people and placed them in two rows in the centre of the structure facing the door. After this, he kidnapped 120 more infants and placed them, in their cradles, in his house. This magical house served its purpose well, for many, many whales came to Tsaxwasap.”

The shrine, which dates back to 1700 and could be much older, was used by at least eight generations of whale ritualists. After the third generation of use, wooden figures were substituted for human skeletons.

There were only 14 skulls at the site when it was collected in 1904.

The wooden figures appear in the photograph above. I suspect the 25 human skulls may be all that remains of the crew of The Boston, killed by Maquinna's warriors in 1803, but who knows? Friendly Cove was once the most important point of anchorage on the Northwest Coast.

As far as I know, the items in question are still housed in the American Museum. An article in the Vancouver Sun, April 2013, states that the museum has tentatively agreed to repatriate the shrine. One challenge is financial; moreover, what should the community do with the shrine once it is returned? This is a complex issue. The Nuu-chah-nulth people hope to build a Cultural Centre here, but to do so takes a great deal of money. Also, the cove is only accessible by boat or floatplane. Still, it makes no sense to me that this powerful, sacred treasure should be crammed in the basement of a New York museum. What do you think?

It was a Rough Night

“Some say, the earth was feverish and did shake” (Macbeth II.3)

It was a rough night. Aye. Last night, I was lying in my comfy bed reading when the bed began to move as if several people were holding it, and shaking it. My first reaction was to get out of the bed and stare at it. (I can hear you laughing, Tara.) But, my immediate thought was of paranormal activity. I kid you not.

The last couple of days I’ve been thinking about the people who lived and died in this cove. Maquinna’s people decapitated twenty-five sailors and placed their heads on sticks around the cove, in retaliation for prior injury done to his people. What happened to their bodies? Do their bones lie crusted with algae and kelp beneath the waves, or did they burn with the ship? And then, there are countless Mowachaht/Muchalaht people, who died here over the millennia due to various reasons, and suffered through diseases like smallpox. And the sailors and fishermen whose boats have capsized and sunk beneath the waves.

And so, my first thought was of spirits. 

Then, I heard a voice mention earthquake. A real voice. On the radio. According to this morning’s Victoria Times Colonist, I had just experienced a 6.7 magnitude earthquake. I don’t know the accuracy of this map, but that red circle is just northwest of us. We are in the cove just above the 7.

My bed-shaker was not supernatural. She was natural.

As the night wore on, the wind roared and rain pelted the windows. I laid in my comfy bed, in my comfy house, which is perched on the edge of a rock, and did not sleep.  Two vessels had taken refuge in our snug harbour for the night, and I began to wonder what it must be like to try to sleep through this raging rain in your boat. Until, at last, I dozed.

In the early hours, I awoke to an eerie calm quiet. Nature, here, is a very real, vibrant force. This week, as we celebrate Earth Day, remember she is very much alive all the time: Mother Earth, Gaia, Isis, Danu. From time to time, she rocks us in her arms to remind us.

The White Church (part 1)

Emily Carr is a woman I admire. Passionate and true to herself, she rejected Victorian decorum to explore the world. This was something that young women just did not do at the turn of the century. She travelled to San Francisco, London, and Paris to learn her craft. Heavens! She even dared to ride horseback like a man.

courtesy of bcheritage.ca

Fearless, determined, and open-minded, Emily is so much more than her art. Travelling by boat and canoe, often with only a guide and her wee dog, she explored the West Coast, sketching and painting Haida, Salish, and Nuu-chah-nulth villages. Like a west wind, whispering and screaming with paint, she drew our gaze to vanishing peoples and cultures.

An independent women, Emily supported herself as best she could by teaching art, and running a boarding house; though these chores must have stifled her creative process. Still, through it all she survived, and she painted. And, when she could no longer travel or camp or even move around much, she began to write.

In 1929, Emily Carr visited Friendly Cove. In a famous quote, she described the Nootka Lightstation as a “strange wild perch” on a “nosegay of rocks, bunched with trees, spiced with wildflowers.”

I do, at times, feel akin to the eagles who careen by my windows or perch atop the rocks.

She painted the original small white Roman Catholic church.

courtesy of the Art Gallery of Ontario --  ago.net

The rows of crosses in the picketed churchyard speak to the devastation that engulfed this community. Between 1778, when Captain James Cook appeared in Friendly Cove, and 1900, the population of the First People living here was reduced by nine-tenths. Disease, carried by the European traders and explorers, was the main culprit.

Built in a cove at the west end of the village, the original church burned down in 1954. You can just see it (the small site mark) near the centre of this photograph.

courtesy of the Art Gallery of Ontario -- ago.net

I’ve been drawn to that cove since I arrived—I can see it through my windows—and finally walked there yesterday with my companion, Lucy. I’ve tried before, but couldn’t get past the barricade of barnacle clad rocks. The tide must be very low. This is how it looks today. 

Emily's trees still hug the beach, and spring water cascades down the rocks between the driftwood logs. At the time, I didn’t know it was the space once claimed by the white church and the graveyard. Are the graves still there, crumbling beneath the trees? And the spirits? The energy was incredibly peaceful and comforting. It felt…homey. Then, Lucy got distracted by something in the trees. 

I turned, and at the last second, realized it was Raven. 

CLEAR

Two Days of Brilliant Sunshine Spur Activity in Friendly Cove.

(Another Billy Pretty Headline).

I was excited this weekend to be able to record CLR, meaning clear sky, in the weather book. We even managed calm and rippled a few times too.

Early Saturday morning, the crew of The Bartlett appeared to refill our diesel tanks. It’s always exciting to have visitors.

It’s still cool here, even in the sun, but we stood outside, watching and chatting, as the tanks were filled. Later, we were invited to join the crew for an excellent shipboard BBQ. In the afternoon, Lucy and I walked the beach. You just can't pass up a sunny afternoon. By bedtime, 7pm, I was exhausted after a day spent outside. 

Sunday, the weather held. Mark went out to check his prawn traps and discovered that he’d caught another octopus. This one will transform into halibut--apparently, halibut love to eat octopus. Another link in the chain.

It was low tide, so Lucy and I decided to attempt a rock climb across the slick bracken shore, and up the hill to the northern monument. A gorge separates this part of San Raphael Island from the station. The obelisk is a favourite perch for eagles, and I was curious about it. A Spanish trading post called "Santa Cruz de Nutka" operated here from 1789-1795. One of the crew told me that a Spanish fort once stood on this rise, so I gather, this undecipherable etching is in commemoration of that fact. 

Lucy is a trooper. It’s a tough climb--I had to pick her up in one hand, and boost her a few times, while I clung to the rocks with the other. 

All the while, I kept thinking of Emily Carr travelling by canoe, and traversing dissolving villages with her little Griffon dog, Billie, in her arms. If Emily could do it, so could we. And we did.

I’m going to do a little commercial here for my "Bogs" boots. Solid bottoms and fabric tops, they keep me warm and dry, and are surprisingly comfie. As clunky as they look, I wade through seaweed and barnacles, and scramble up and down the rocks, as nimble as...well, as nimble as I could ever be.

Signs of Spring

Signs of spring are everywhere in Friendly Cove. Generations of lightkeepers have planted bulbs around the station, so daffodils and grape hyacinths flash splashes of colour and cheer on fogbound days. Yesterday, while the sun shone on the Lower Mainland and bees sang in the blossoming trees, we clung to the rock in a pale blanket of drizzle and fog for the entire day. Visibility two miles. Weather changes frequently. Case in point: thirty minutes ago the sun was shining, the sky blue; now, it is almost overcast again.

When the clouds do break, Lucy and I wander down the trails to the cove, breathing in the sun. Along the pathway, pink fawn lilies blossom. Snakes surprise me, slithering from the threat of my rubber boots, while birds sing in the echoing waves. 

The herring did not spawn this year at Friendly Cove, and Ray has taken away the branches that laid waiting on the dock for weeks. He told me it was sad for his people. First Nations along coastal BC have collected Pacific herring spawn for thousands of years. In his journal, Jewitt spoke of it as a delicacy. For an interesting article on the Pacific Herring, read The Tyee.

Pacific Herring courtesy of raincoast.org

Sunshine and Sea Otters

It’s amazing how beautiful everything looks and feels when the sun appears after several days of rain and fog. This morning we are blessed with a shining dawn. These towering cumulous are a welcome sight against the azure sky.

Birds are singing, and even our resident sea otter is back in the cove foraging breakfast. I think there are a pair living here in the shallow kelp forest. A member of the weasel family, they are adept at using tools, and a joy to watch. They protect our kelp forests by preying on the urchins, crabs, mussels, and other marine species that would consume them.

Ever wanted to see beneath the waves like a sea otter? Jon Gross and Keith Clements are underwater photographers and scuba divers who have amassed a dazzling array of photographs and movies.

Enhydra lutris kenyoni, the Northern Sea Otter, was abundant along the Pacific Coast, until hunted and traded to near extinction in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Their dense luxurious coats were coveted by both First Peoples and Europeans, and drew both the Spanish and the English to this coast. Hunting sea otters is a Nuu-chah-nulth tradition. 

According to Native Legal Update, in 2009, the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation reached a tentative agreement with Fisheries and Oceans Canada to reinstate their sea otter hunt at a rate of 1% or 20 per year. I cannot find any further information on this controversy, and wonder if final approval was ever reached. I understand the importance of culture, but can only hope that the sea otters at Nootka Lightstation remain safe. 

http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_groups/fp_nwc3.htm

photo courtesy of beyondthemap.ca

Sunday in Paradise

Days melt into days here on the lights. When I rose at 4am this morning to survey the situation, I was rather shocked to find us completely surrounded by fog. I wandered up to the land bridge for a better look. When I glanced up at the sky, I was amazed to see stars! It seemed somehow bizarre to be surrounded by fog with zero visibility, and yet able to see stars. This is something we call "partially obscure" and record like this: -X

But, weather changes with a blink in this place. Three hours later, dawn appeared, just like this:

So far, the herring have not come, despite Ray's best efforts. Every day he goes looking for them. He watches the birds and the animals. It's a peaceful place, and I don't think I could be more relaxed. Here are a couple of other photos of the station:

The Land Bridge to the Heli-pad and the Beach

A View of the Station from the Beach

A Peek at Yuquot

I sit by the beach and try to imagine what this landscape looked like hundreds, or even thousands, of years ago. Surely, rocks are the pillars of the earth, and ocean tides ebb and flow forever. This space cannot have changed much over time. The sea tumbles rocks into pebbles, old trees fall, young trees grow, and totems decay while others appear. 

Courtesy of CTC Bewley Sailing

Carved by Sandford Williams

Yuquot means “where the winds blow from many directions.” Indeed, in the few days I’ve been here tuning into the weather, the winds have shifted often. This is the ancestral home of the Mowachaht First Nation, and the centre of Nuu-chah-nulth Territory. To learn more about the culture, visit Nuuchahnulth Cultureand hear it from the people.

The land juts out into Nootka Sound. I imagine the village houses, framed from solid cedar posts and banked with cedar planks, stretching along the shore of Friendly Cove. It’s said, twenty longhouses once stood here. This sandy sheltered beach fronts them. Behind them, a long pebbled beach stretches from Yuquot Point, northward up the coast. When the waves rock the shore it sounds like cascading marbles.

This was once the summer meeting places of many villages who paddled on the “winds from many directions.” In the fall, the house planks were taken down and loaded into canoes along with provisions, and families paddled northward up Tahsis Inlet to their winter village. If I sail east across the sound, through Zuchiarte Channel and Muchalat Inlet, I will come to Gold River. This is where most of the people relocated. Only the Williams family remains, living in a weathered house on the beach at Friendly Cove.

I just finished reading White Slaves of Maquinna (an ebook published by Heritage House). Essentially, it is a journal written by John R. Jewitt during his two year stay with the people of Yuquot. Young Jewitt was working as a blacksmith aboard the Boston, when Maquinna’s people attacked on March 22, 1803. Twenty-five crew members were killed in retaliation for injuries Maquinna’s people had suffered at the hands of European sailors during the quest for land and furs. Because of his unique skill, that of turning metal into tools and weapons, Jewitt’s life was spared. When John Thompson, the sailmaker, was discovered, Jewitt saved him by by claiming that the man was his father. Even then, Maquinna wanted Jewitt to be happy. 

Although the journal is entitled White Slaves, Jewitt was adopted in Maquinna’s family, offered his choice of a wife, and grew close with both the chief and his sons. The only drudgery he really complains about is having to chop and carry wood. In time, Jewitt is given slaves of his own to fish for him. The armourer becomes a valued member of the village; indeed, he creates stunning daggers, harpoons, and other items for Maquinna.

Naturally, Jewitt brings his own ethnocentric bias to the narrative, especially when he describes his bride. As he did not “fancy any of the Nootka woman” Maquinna purchased her from a nearby village. She was the daughter of the chief. Not exactly the treatment of a slave.

Biased yes, but Jewitt does provide a detailed two year peek into Mowachacht life in the early Nineteenth Century. The Adventures of John Jewitt, edited by Robert Brown, 1896 (with illustrations)You can read it here at  Gutenberg

The Williams family still engage in seasonal activities as did their ancestors. Out in his boat every day, Ray searches for signs of herring, as he eagerly awaits spawning time. Pine branches are cut and laid out on the dock, ready to be sunk in the water. After the herring spawn on the branches, they are raised and cleaned. Herring spawn is a traditional delicacy here at Friendly Cove.

I also await the herring. When they arrive, it’s said, the cove comes alive with whales, seals, eagles, and other creatures eager to fill their bellies with spring protein. Last spring, the herring spawned on March 28. This year, they are late. Come on herring!