A Historical Event

The last weekend my parents were here, Aug 22/23, there was an amazing event in the village. 40 years ago, a pole was carved by a 22 year old Haida man and it was raised infront of the Anglican church in Old Masset. The carvers name is Robert Davidson. The Davidson family celebrated this anniversary with a feast complete with singing, dancing, and inspiring words at the Hall. I don't know the numbers in attendance but it was a packed house, maybe 700 people witnessed the event.

It had been almost 100 years since the last pole went up before this pole in 1969. The potlatch ban of 1884 tried to end all things culturally important to the First Nations people. In B's family, songs were recorded in his great grandma's kitchen back in the 50's in an attempt to keep the songs and language from being lost and forgotten. There was a special mask that was hidden in the walls of the house so that it would not be confiscated. There were no more potlatches, feasts, ceremonies, poles, masks, singing, dancing, longhouses... I think Robert Davidson said they had just a couple songs and dances to celebrate the raising of his pole in '69. They had no masks and so a dancer that needed a mask used a paper bag over their head. When the potlatch ban was omitted from the Indian Act in 1951, the First Nations cultural activities were almost lost.


On the Friday night Grand Entrance, there were over a hundred of dancers; beautiful blankets (several raven's tail style woven), lots of cedar hats, 14 (?) huge box drums all painted inside, masks of all shapes and sizes: lots of eagle and raven with the clapping beak, a few killer whale, one mask had huge eyes that blinked, and there were several transformation masks. It was beautiful visual art. The sound of the drums and the power of so many voices singing was very cool. (I had lots of shiver down the spine moments over the weekend). The Haida culture is alive and well!


The drum beat was led by 'Gogeet' (?). The wild man or bigfoot of the forest. He was the first to come out, that is why there are no dancers yet :)

There was a feast both Friday night and Saturday night (fantastic soup!) and dance performances from groups all over the island and from Alaska. Throughout the weekend, Robert and Reg shared some wonderful inspiring words with all in attendance.

Here is the pole today infront of the church. We met there on Saturday afternoon. In the weeks before this event there were a few local guys who worked on restoring it; cleaned it up a bit and added some fresh paint.

Below are ladies dancing with Robert and Reg Davidson leading the singers.

At the Saturday night feast, a gift was presented; I will have to research the details to be sure who it was from and who it was to before posting. It was a painting of a photograph taken the day the pole was raised in 1969. The young men raising the pole are recognizable and so are many of the elders in the background. It gives a glimpse into the past of that historic day. On Monday morning, while I was at work, the painting went up at the Hospital lobby. It was decided this was an appropriate place to display for all the community to see.

My parents left on Monday with a full blown BC Ferry 'get off the rock' experience. The ferry was broken in Prince Rupert for a few days; three sailings were missed with one of them being their reserved spot on Saturday. Once the ferry made it to the island, they had to get in the stand-by lineup. But over night the winds picked up. They got into the lineup about 7am, spent the day waiting on the ferry and it did not leave Skidegate till 8pm due to a 'weather delay'.

Just a few more days of summer vacation... I'm looking forward to getting back into the school routine.

More Family Time

And then some aunts and uncles came up for a visit. What a crazy bunch of relatives. There was lots of eating, laughing, playing voilent games of 'spoons'... I learned that my stellar card playing techniques must have come from my dad's side of the family. Sorry uncle L, but your sister A had interesting card-playing strategies:)

The guys all went fishing one day, we did some beachcombing, had smokies over a fire on the beach even though I am pretty sure the fire ban was not lifted yet (oops), visited the museum in Skidegate, and hiked Tow Hill.

Here are almost all of us (we left D back on the trail. He had sore feet) out on the rocks at the Blow Hole. Lots of interesting tide pools.

Here is the platform trail through the trees. We spied out mushrooms along the way.

and D is getting pretty strong. I think I saw the balancing rock sway just a little.

Family Time

Well the family arrived in full force last weekend. My parents drove up, (they are here for 3 weeks and are renting their own PMQ) and my brother with preggo sis-in-law and little J flew up along with Opa (the GREAT grandpa) for a 4 day visit.


Papa and little J taking a walk.
Opa, my dad and I at the beach

At the same time, B's side of the family stayed at our place for their 5 day adventure. There was Grandma, auntie, uncle, 2 cousins and the dog. They never stopped. We barely got in the door from a morning out crabbing and Grandma says 'So what are we doing next? Are you ready to go yet? Where can I go shopping?' We sent her off to Fields and she came home with a bagfull of stuff.

We ate A LOT of crab.

The kids crabbed, quadded, snorkled and surfed like pros.

J and R had fun hanging out.

We also witnessed our first truck being lost to the ocean. We were out crabbing one foggy morning: I did not see the water line till I was about 20 ft away so I pulled a U-turn and headed back for a higher ground. We came upon this guy trying to shovel himself out of the wet sand just a few feet from the low tide line. Things went from bad to worse as the tide started to come in. We pushed, some guys from Smithers on quads pulled, then a truck with Alberta plates came along but by then the water was coming under the truck and he was sinking deeper. It was a case of a bunch of tourists trying to help this guy but they didn't have a local know-how to do it. I showed the video to our neighbour and he says 'what was the problem? I could have got him out'. I left my truck up on the sand bar. No way I was going out there to get stuck beside this guy too :)

A drive to the East Side

Last week, before all the family started arriving, the boys and I went out to Rose Spit and East Beach with some local friends for the day. This destination is probably the most 'out there' place I would ever go without B along and I would never go without another vehicle. We were going to pick wild strawberries but once the kids got into the water looking for crabs, there was no going pickin'. I did not know that the East side was closed to non-natives so my card carrying boys caught lunch for the gang.

There was good crab hunting in the tidal pools.

A feast on the beach!


And when the tide came in, the sand bar was a good runway from the warm tidal pool water to the cooler ocean water.


Unfortunately, J felt the wrath of a jelly fish and he was quite uncomfortable the ride back home.