Gil Island -

 Before my experiences in Australia with the Aboriginal people there, I had a few adventures with the Indigenous people of Canada.   I wrote about my journey to Gil Island almost twenty years ago, when I was in Hartley Bay.  Every day was an adventure that year. I deeply wished my husband was there to share it with me, but was fortunate to meet so many new, interesting, and adventurous people.  I think it was in Hartley Bay that I first became aware that the world was not as big, or as scary, as I had previously believed.  The people and my time there all contributed to a growing confidence in myself, and helped me gather the courage to step out, again and again, throughout the rest of my life.  

 

2001-Gil Island

        Living on an Indian Reserve on the rugged coast of BC was a lot more interesting than you may think. Life had lots of color, and there were many real characters!  The remoteness and the rough environment of the country, provided people with the opportunity to be individuals, even if some may have also been a little rough around the edges.  Because Hartley Bay was largely a government-funded project, there were always people coming and going: Doctors, Dentists, Teachers, Biologists, Social Workers, and Police, to list just a few. It could be as busy as an Aboriginal community in the NT of Australia during the Intervention!  Harbour Air, weather permitting, was always bringing someone new to town. 

        I really liked it when an artist or musician made the trip to Rupert, as they often felt the need to visit a reserve, and Hartley Bay, mainly I think because of the magic of its location, was one of the spots to see.

        While I was there we had a couple of interesting visitors and there were pictures of famous people that had visited haphazardly covering a wall in the staff room.  James Barber, a cooking show host, was referred to as Uncle James he came so often.  Terry Jacks was also known to frequent the place, as the fishing in the area was pretty good.   Hartley Bay was the only village for many miles along the coast so boats would often stop and tourists would wander about in the rain, looking at the quaint little Indian village as though it were a museum.  I imagine they were pretty disappointed that we had no obvious store to buy a souvenir, or at the very least a bag of chips and a coffee after a long journey. 

So besides the First Nations people who owned the land, and the short term visitors to the place, there were also a lot of support workers including the occasional policeman, archeologists and biologists, nurses and of course, teachers. 

The kindergarten through grade-two teacher was the principal’s daughter-in-law.  Then there was me, grades 3/4/5, then the principals son, 6/7/8, Therese had the grade nines and finally Chris arrived at the end of October.  He was placed in charge of grades ten through twelve, but only had about nine students.  I was delighted when he arrived, as I felt I finally had someone to talk to, even though he was young, the same age as Monte, my oldest son. The connection between these two young men was not to end there.  Monte had managed to get a roommate from his dorm at college pregnant during his first year away from home.  The result was an amazing little guy, Adam.

        My beautiful grandson and his mom, Paula, were able to make it up and pay me a visit and as a result Chris met Paula, they fell in love and Adam had another dad!  Only this one married his mom and moved in! Chris was to bring his family, also my family, to Oman just a couple of years later, so I was pretty lucky to have met him!  I guess you could say that school was a real family affair!  But there were other interesting people as well.  

            One quiet Sunday morning I went out for some fresh air and to stretch my legs after classes, marking and cleaning.  It was the start of October and the leaves were still not changing color.  Everything was green; a deep, dark, wet green.  It was still raining, although, as I walked along the boardwalk on this particular day, the rain was not coming down quite as hard as it often did.

            As I strolled along the walkway by the community hall, I noticed an unfamiliar gentleman coming toward me with a cup in his hand.

            “Do you have any spare change for a cup of coffee?”  he enquired quite earnestly. I was a little stunned by the question, and it took me a minute to grasp the absurdity of the situation. 

            “I don’t have any change”, I stuttered. “There aren’t any stores here!”  I thought another second, and my natural inclination toward guilt subsided.          

            “No one has change in their pockets in Hartley Bay!” I added indignantly, although my mind was still grappling with the concept of a man begging for spare change, in a community, miles from any stores or even a proper road.  It wasn't possible! 

        Unlike the streets of many places, there are no homeless people in Hartley Bay.  No one loitered about, and certainly no one begged for spare change.  In this unusual community, no one has change in their pockets, as there really is no place to acquire, or spend change!

       “There’s not even a place to buy a cup of coffee,” I realized at the same time the words came out of my mouth.  As I became more confident in myself as well as the situation, curiosity started to kick in.  I was going to ask who he was when the man continued:” Oh!  You want some coffee!?  Follow me!  I know where we can get a cup of coffee! He continued, this place is always open and it is operated by friends of mine!” 

            They say everyone comes into your life for a reason and this was how I met Jon-Lee.   The Indian Band had hired him through a ‘Brighter Futures’ grant to work on self-esteem of both the kids and adults, through basketball. Through his little bit of insanity, I was able keep my sanity.

        Jon-Lee loved basketball, playing on the 1960 Olympic Basketball Team as well as teaching and coaching basketball at Simon Fraser University for ten years.  He had a Masters degree in education, but on this quiet Sunday afternoon I still had no idea just who this nut was!  However, he was certainly entertaining and I was sadly in need of entertainment!

        I found myself following him silently down the walkway, as it was no longer wide enough for two, listening to him chat away. Jon Lee was a very flamboyant character and used his talents as an entertainer to put people off guard.  He could focus every bit of his attention on whomever he was with.  He showed me how to really listen, and made people feel important and interesting.  As a psychologist, this was usually his intention, and it felt good to be around him. I always felt valued when I was around Jon Lee, and know others did too.  He didn't organize meetings and talk about what should be done, his social work wad done by diving in and doing what needed to be done.  Even during this first meeting I felt relaxed and curious.  But, as the boardwalk got rougher, and the buildings more dilapidated, my rational mind began to wonder if following him was really the best course of action. 

        As we continued along, the walkway was beginning to rot away and the piles of ‘stuff’ along the sides of the walk began to grow in rate and stature.  I was amazed at the litter of boards and household articles that seemed to be growing out of a wealth of green slimy algae, skunk cabbage and grass between the houses.  On the other side of the walk were more buildings, but these appeared empty and even more neglected than the ones I had been looking at.

        I had to quit studying the algae covered buildings and interesting ‘stuff’ however, and start paying attention to where I was placing each foot.  Some of the planks on the ‘road’ were missing, while others were in various stages of disintegration.  Many of the good ones would flip up if they weren’t stepped on exactly right.

         But following Jon-Lee was a good idea, and continued to be a good idea throughout my stay in Hartley Bay. This walk to Dan and Mona’s, where we eventually ended up, was to be just one of many I would make along this pathway, either with Jon-Lee, alone, or with a new guest or visitor to the village.  I was to share these special people at the end of the path with my husband Michael, before he slid out of my life, and with Chris who was just stepping in. We would sometimes stop-in on one of my regular walks around the community.  As the days grew shorter and cooler, the warmth and friendship Dan and Mona served up, along with that coffee Jon-Lee had talked about and something to eat; provided the same grounding effect that visits to my grandmother’s house gave me at home. 

        I had first met Dan at the Feast I had attended in September with Therese, and as I got to know these two better, I found they continually went out of their way to make me, as well as most visitors to Hartley Bay, feel comfortable and welcome in this lovely, but often lonely, community.  It was February when my husband first came to visit.  Dan took Mike and I out fishing in the open Canada Fisheries boat he was able to access as the Band administrator of the Salmon Hatchery up the road from the village. 

        It was a cool February day, and there was no place to hide from the elements in the little motorboat. I realized too, when the guys relieved themselves in the ocean, that there was no place to hide at all!  We had travelled inland, up the Douglas Chanel, almost to Old Town, the September camp for the people of Hartley Bay.  They had a traditional Long House there and spent Septembers catching the fish as they made their way inland to spawn.  It was mid-winter now, and although we met up with other boats, fishing in the area, the long house was deserted.  Within a short time we caught a huge pastel pink coloured salmon!  I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when a short time later we had brilliant blue salmon on the floor of the boat!  By the time we got home, the fish was dead and no longer radiated any of the beautiful brilliant colours.

        Mona worked with the elders and I was able to drop in on different activities at the Band hall and just be with this fascinating group of people while they went about their lives.  I was introduced to a marine biologist through these visits, made cockle paddies for sale at the All Native basketball tournament in Prince Rupert and was introduced to a great deal of interesting First Nations food; seaweed covered roe that popped in my mouth, oolichins, deep fried and crunchy, head and all.  But my favorite was the salmon: smoked, barbecued, dried, fried, baked, and candied.  They were all good!  

        By June, Dan had had enough of listening me whine about not getting to see the fish run at Old Town or the Halibut camp at Kiel.  He decided to take me to visit the elders who were in the last days of their annual trip to their springtime home.

        While the natives in the interior lived traditionally lived in teepee's and hunted animals on land, on the coast it was all about long houses and the sea.  The Hartley Bay Elders still enjoyed a relatively nomadic lifestyle.  They had constructed a long house at Old Town, for everyone to share in the fall, had their government subsidized houses in Hartley Bay to spend the cold winter months, and enjoyed as a seaweed and halibut camp on Princess Royal Island, on which they had built individual family cabins, for the spring.  They would usually stay in Kiel for the month of May and by early June were cleaning up to leave.  I was getting concerned that they would be returning before I made it anywhere! 

        Dan and Mona listened to my disappointment and then decided that Dan would take me on a day trip.  I went over to their place early on a Saturday morning and woke them up.  Dan had invited me for breakfast but apparently had forgotten to tell his wife!  I had to wait for him to get ready, (that time thing again!) and had cup after cup of warming coffee, June on the northern coast is still not terribly warm, before we finally headed out.  We took the open Fisheries boat again, armed with nothing more than a few sandwiches for the two-hour trip: no life jackets, no VHF radio, and only one paddle, not too smart! 

        As we made out way along the north (west?) side of Gil Island, the water was a little rough, and I again marveled at the beauty; Green, green and more green.  I had been through this part of the Northwest Passage in the larger fishing boat, and even flew over it, but traveling in the smaller speedboat was like traveling by motor cycle; you were just more in touch with everything around you! 

        Right from the start I could feel each wave as we bounced over one and crashed into the next.  As my morning cups of coffee I had that morning began to make themselves known, each bounce made me a little more uncomfortable and it wasn't long before they were painfully beginning to pound on my bladder. By the time we were about half way there, I could no longer wait.  Little boat or no, I had to find a place to go to the bathroom. 

        For a man, this wouldn't be a problem, but for a middle aged white woman out in the middle of the Canadian Pacific coastline with a man she suddenly realized she hardly knew, it was a predicament.  There was no privacy for me in the small motorboat, so when I finally admitted to Dan what I needed, he pulled into hidden bay, and then another smaller one, and touched up near some big rocks.  

        I quickly baled out, almost unaware of the painfully sharp barnacle covered rocks and finally scrambled into the brush to locate a suitably secluded spot to squat.  Midstream I heard the motor stop, but I wasn't too concerned until I returned to find Dan turning the engine over and over again with a grim look on his face.

        It seems he hadn't shut the engine off; it had stalled.  Now I was concerned.  Were we out of gas? Was there something wrong with the engine?  It began to dawn on me that no one knew which way we were traveling.  We hadn't really explained to Mona the precise route we were going to take and they’re a number of ways to get to Kiel.  We certainly didn't tell her we were stopping here, in a bay inside a bay - who knows where.  We had no supplies of any sort, not even a drink of water.  This was a huge area and we were certainly off the beaten track, even if there was such a thing up here.  And then I began to look at Dan with different eyes. 

        Did I really even know this guy?  Was this a guise?  Was I about to be raped and murdered: left for the spirit bear to clean up? I had taught Red Cross Water Safety courses for years, yet here I was, somewhere along the coast of B.C., one of the most rugged coastlines in the world, in an open boat, miles from anywhere without so much as a paddle.  I knew we weren't rowing home! 

        It would be almost impossible to even paddle to where another boat was a possibility.  I looked at Dan again remembering that he had recently quit smoking. He wouldn’t have packed any matches to make a fire. Plan B down the drain.  Dan didn't stop to worry, he was now engrossed in trying to use a nylon rope, one of the few things we did have board, to pull start the engine.  Was he just making it look like he was trying hard?

        Thankfully, and suddenly, the engine coughed and caught!  I must say I felt guilt at first, guilt and then relief; waves of relief!  I pushed us off the rocks and jumped back on board before something else happened and we were back on our way. 

        We rode rapidly out of the little cove, at least it seemed a lot faster now that my bladder was empty and the threat of pushing the boat along with a stick was gone, and turned back out onto the open water.

        Things were going pretty well when we found ourselves in an area that appeared to be much too shallow.  I tried to draw Dan's attention to the fact that the water was only about six inches deep and this may be a problem.  But he shook his head and hollered that the water was plenty deep.  My worried face must have encouraged him and he slowed down a bit and explained that it was just the red tide.

         I thought I had seen red tide before, but obviously never to this extent.  There were big red waves, and it really seemed that the water was just inches deep. He continued with the slower speed and we were able to speak over the noise of the motor.  He started telling me stories about his childhood, growing up around here and collecting gull eggs as a kid.  How amazing to have had the ocean as your back yard! 

        We sped up and it was again too noisy to talk much, but when he pointed to the rocks nearby.  I turned and saw some fishermen in small aluminum boats from one of the floating fishing lodges trying their luck near a small island covered in sea lions.  It was weird to see other people.  It had seemed we were all alone, but actually, the area was full of life!  Besides birds, fishermen and sea lions, there were fish jumping, dolphins and even the occasional Killer Whale.

        Dan steered in closer along some rocky cliffs and I grabbed some of the silky soft green seaweed that his people collected in the early spring and dried.  They would then deep fry it, or add as a leafy vegetable to their meals in the winter.  Deep fried it was better than chips, the natural saltiness made it a great snack!  

        When we finally saw Kiel, I was struck by its rustic beauty.  The island was huge, yet the grey wooden cabins were all built cramped closely together along a lovely little spit of sandy beach.  Smoke drifted lazily out of the chimneys and the big boats ruled majestically over the sparkling water. 

        Some of the elders came out to greet us and hold the boat as we climbed out.  They were excited to see people from home, as they had been living here, mainly in the rain, for the last five or six weeks.  I headed to some of the homes I had been invited to visit and they began to share their stories.

        A white wolf had had been sharing their camp, hanging out around the cabins.  They assured me that there had been no sign of the white bears Princess Island was famous for, or Gus Lax; the legendary monster that the children had told me to watch for as it too resided here. Wally, a local carpenter, had carved the monster out of a tree, perpetuating the legend to keep the children safely close to home. 

        Wally’s house was haunted apparently; it had been from the time it was first built.  Bell had invited me over for coffee many times in Hartley Bay and it was fun to visit her here, in her small dark windowless, log cabin with the corrugated metal roof.  She had a pot bellied stove in the center of the room, like I had when my children were small, with its rusty, little metal chimney going up through a hole in the ceiling.  Her large Hartley Bay home was a chaotic and cluttered place, and although the cabin here was very limited in space, it had the same busy atmosphere.

        Bell was always doing something; canning salmon or baking cake and bread.  Life revolved around food.  Here she was yet again, busy working over the little stove making soup.  I was able to enjoy a nice bowl with some still warm, fresh white bread.  I observed boxes and blankets and a large wooden rack laden with strips of halibut, drying in preparation for the year ahead.  It looked to me like they had had successful few weeks.

        Bell was cleaning up, getting ready to move back to Hartley Bay, so I moved on to visit the Chief, and his wife Helen.  As I walked over to their relatively speaking, upscale spring cottage, I watched as one of the elders pounded the dry halibut with a large homemade wooden mallet.  An elder was making a type of halibut jerky, to last the winter and presented me with a bag-full to eat on the trip home.  It was lovely, and I was thankful to have supplies for the journey.  After all, who knew what could happen on a journey between Hartley Bay and Kiel?!         

        Next, I was able to visit with Colleen and Gideon.  Gideon was on the school board and his family was a large prominent one in the community, and included my T.A.  as a daughter-in-law.  Here, deep in the woods, I was able to use their flush toilet!  They even had a bathtub.  The water was heated on a wood stove near the door, and then poured in the tub.  I am sure this was a welcome item in May as the snow had just recently thawed and it had been cold and rained most of the month.

        Everyone was packing up.  I had made it just in time, as they were all getting ready to move back home, tomorrow! Helen, asked me before we left exactly what route we were going to take to get home.  She also asked that Mona call her when we arrived on the boats two-way radio. I assured her we would do that, and was grateful that someone seemed to appreciate how long and dangerous the journey they traveled all the time really was.  Many of their people had lost their lives on these waters, including two of my student's father, just the year before.  While some people would put their head in the sand, there were extremely intelligent members of the tribe that did their best to keep the group safe. 

          We headed back on a different route than we had come, along the opposite side of Gil Island, when we stopped to visit some whale watchers.  A group of German scientists were studying whales and had been camped for a number of months already.  One lady was doing a documentary on the work and was planning on staying about six weeks to film.  The combined camp was very different than the one I had just visited.  Very modern; would have made a great Mountain Equipment Co-op ad.

        The group had lots of company on this first sunny day in months.  When we got there they already had visitors from one of the fishing lodges, and later one of the boats from Hartley Bay stopped in to check what was going on.

        They were great hosts, providing us all with more coffee (yes, I had to stop again on the way home, but this time the engine didn’t quit) A busy place in the middle of nowhere! The trip back was slow and the waves huge; it took more than two hours as the boat motor was slow, coughing and sputtering and making me nervous!  I was glad that we had told the chief’s wife that we would call her when we arrived back; no call and someone would come looking.  We may have had water in the fuel tank, but we kept going! 

        The wave swells grew as we traveled between Gil and Promise, diagonally across, and dark clouds began rolling in above us, but we made it back.  For Dan, I wonder if it wasn’t just another day.  However, my legs wobbled when I got out of the boat, thankful to be on the, relatively speaking, solid ground of Hartley Bay.  I ran off before I could say thank you, but returned the next day to let this wonderful couple know that they had given me one of the most magical days I can remember