Several weeks ago I mentioned canoeing on Clayoquot Sound in a native dugout. Let me elaborate.
Tla-Ook Cultural Adventures is a small operation in the town of Tofino on the Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. When Shelley and I arrived at the pier, we were pleasantly surprised to find that we were the only customers that day and the canoe, and its charming skipper Gisele Martin, were all ours. Gisele gave us each a life vest and a wooden paddle and got us into the canoe, which was a traditionally carved cedar dugout. We set off into a calm and pleasant afternoon paddling hard against an incoming current. This tour definitely proved to be a participation activity, and not a haven for slackers or anyone out of shape.
As we pulled hard against the current, Gisele helped us along with a native song, sung low and rhythmically from her position at the tiller in the stern. The song, she explained, was a means to synchronize the strokes of the paddlers, and also served to notify other tribes in times past, exactly who was approaching their shores. This in turn maximized the turnout of friendly greeters when a village was neared, and minimized the threat of the canoe being met by an angry war party. Canoers with bad intentions apparently didn’t sing as they stealthily plied the waters of the coast.
The canoe, carved from a single cedar tree trunk by Gisele’s uncle, Joe Martin, was heavy and required a bit of muscle to get going, but it also was quite stable and carried forward nicely on its own momentum once it was up to speed. We got around the Sound quite a bit, moving from island to island among the many that dot the waterway, with Gisele pointing out wildlife and telling stories about the islands, each of which was the object of one or more traditional tales that Gisele was happy to share.
There had been a great battle here, a grand potlatch there, the otters played on this shore, the bald eagles fished from that tree… the stories were many, and each one enchanting. In the lore of the Nuu-chah-nulth nations, of which Gisele’s Tla-o-qui-aht people are one tribe, every place and every type of animal has its legend. As we paddled around the waterways, Gisele told many of these stories, and each had its charm.
Equally engrossing but naturally much more somber, were tales of contact with Europeans and European Americans, which occurred during the last stages of colonization of Western North America in the 1700s and 1800s. When a village was bombarded by an American warship, villagers took revenge on the next ship to come their way, attacking and sinking the American gunboat, Tonquin, in one of the most mismatched naval encounters of all time. When the bloodletting was done, many of the canoe warriors were dead, but the Tonquin lay on the bottom of Clayoquot Sound.
Another harrowing tale was the local version of the horror story of the arrival of smallpox among people who had never experienced the plague before. As ninety-five percent of Nuu-chah-nulth people lay down and died, a wise old grandmother by the name of Tla-Ook insisted that her family all flee to a small cove far up at the end of Clayoquot Sound. There they stayed safe while their friends and relations passed away. After the dying was done, Tla-Ook and her family returned to begin the slow process of recovering their traditions and repopulating the beautiful lands they had called home since the beginning of time. The grateful survivors named their tribe in honor of that grandmother and called themselves the people of Tla-ook, that is, Tla-o-qui-aht.
The tribe’s process of recovery and reconnection with its all-but-lost places and traditions continues today in the small villages around Tofino. Thanks to beautiful Gisele and her touching and uplifting songs and stories, we can see how that recovery will lead to the rebirth of a wonderful nature-connected society.
More about Tla-Ook Cultural Adventures can be found here. Check them out. I guarantee you will never forget your experiences on Clayoqout Sound.
