March 25, 2018
I arrived at Esketemc, at the Arbour in the camping area, just as the shuttle was preparing to depart to Farewell Canyon.
I signed the waiver form on the bus. As I climbed the stairs of the shuttle I asked if there were room for me.
“Room for the first 55 if they have signed a waiver,” said the person sitting in the driver’s seat. “So far there are 28 on board.”
I took a seat on the left hand side of the bus, a couple of seats behind the bus driver and knew that I would be treating this as though I were on an excursion from an expensive cruise ship, pressing my nose to the window to my left, but mostly looking out the front of the bus at the scenery.
I was surprised that we took the road back to Williams Lake and then turned toward the hills, climbing them and going along curved roads, switchbacks, gaining altitude. I studied the cattle on the hillside. I noticed when the fields were fenced and when the animals seemed to roam as they wished, only stopped by the cattle guards on the roads. I watched sign put up by the BC Forestry saying Mile 1, Mile, 2 … Mile 13, etc.
The first rain for many days was falling. The windshield wipers on the bus were on a low speed, first the pane to the left, then the pane to the right being cleaned off. I was overwhelmed when we got to the top of the hill.
Actually I gasped and because I was alone, but it was too much gorgeousness for a person who was alone, I leaned forward to the person who was in the seat ahead of me and said, Wow.” All of this fabulous beataciousness is just too much for me to experience alone.”
He nodded.
I could see the depth of the Fraser Canyon, the turquoise blue water of the river swirling at the bottom of the gorge.
The bus began the descent into the canyon on a road with z-like switch backs.
Finally getting to the bottom I could see a bridge and 2 Chilchotin Chiefs standing on it, one of them with his legs far apart in a stance as though we could not cross the bridge.
I think his arms were also crossed.
“Are they going to keep us from crossing the bridge,” asked the bus driver as he turned to us, throwing his question to the back of the bus. No one answered. He popped out of the bus telling us all to stay put before he left. I think he was gone long enough that some men stood up and began to leave the bus to go see for themselves what was going on ahead and to check if he needed help.
The driver returned and said it was OK for the rest of us to leave the bus and I walked down to the bridge to see what the drumming and singing were about which had now started. Chilcotin chiefs were on our side of the bridge. Secwepemculew chiefs were on our side of the bridge.
“Don’t worry, there is just welcoming going on,” said someone. People were watching the chiefs talking to each other. Travellers were milling around, some moving along the sidewalk so that there were people were standing on the bridge.
Rebecca took me over and introduced me to one of the Chilcotin chiefs who is married to one of her former students. Always worried about protocol, she had asked the Chilcotin chief. who seemed to be in charge, if it were alright to do this.
“Yes, since you have asked,” he said to her. “Go ahead.” With him we talked for a while about the recent article his wife had written on picking morrels in the forest.
Then someone said to me, “Dipnetting is going on. Go onto the bridge yourself and take a look. It is safe.”
People were climbing the steep trail at the side of the canyon and coming out at the top of the bridge. I was wondering where that trail came from for it seemed to descend to the river. As well, I now had some idea why everyone had to sign a waiver before getting on the bus for this first impulse of mine was to take the trail leading down to the churning water. My second and more sane plan was just to walk onto the bridge and watch the dipnet fishing over the rails as many people were doing.
The first thing I noticed was a bag that was being drawn up from the water was only half way up when it went broke, pummelling itself on the rocks below, three fish splatting from it and bouncing onto the rocks. I wondered how large those fish really were, given it is hard to tell length of a fish from the height I was at.
Immediately I thought of sucker fish and the broken bones he suffered when he fell from the sky in “The Story of the Sky People”. “Three salmon, now sucker fish,” I murmured to myself.
Rebecca and Bonnie were standing by my side by now.
They pointed out the man on the edge of the rocks, a rope tide over the main part of his body, a long net in his hand.
He was making long scoops through the water, and when catching a fish he would pull the net up and toss the fish out of it and behind a small rock fence that was on the side of the cliff.
Another man would scramble down to that place, pick up three fish or so and take them up the side of the canyon to a place where he could bag them in large burlap bags which he then tied and someone else then winched up to the top of the bridge.
We watched how many time the dipnet fisher had to swirl his net through the water to catch a fish. Bonnie had a contest with someone who stood near her, both of them giving the number of dips they thought it would take: 20 / 25 / 30 / 40, the numbers kept rising until a fish came into the net at dipnet number 47.
Intense conversation was still going on between the Chilcotin and the Secwepemc chiefs and the reports came in one by one:
1) I have listened long enough to hear both side of the conversation and I don’t need to hear anymore;
2) I thought the negotiations were going well until someone on our side said smothing that the other side said thought was inflammatory and things went off the rails;
3) don’t worry, we can still have the salmon ceremony on the far side of the bridge and you can either walk up there, or go get on the bus and it will take you up there.
“Looks like we are equidistant from both spots. We will walk up.”
And so we did, waiting for the bus to follow.
A certain amount of energy coursed through our veins when we saw the bus start up, but go in the direction of driving home.
We were far, too far away to run and catch up with it.
A car arrived to say that there would be no ceremony, and that we should walk back to the bus.
I can’t remember who came to tell us that a woman in a white car was offering sandwiches to all, saying, “We want to feed your elders and what is going on between the chiefs is just political. But we have sandwiches here for you.”
These were sandwiches that not all felt comfortable taking, me being one of those.
We got onto the bus and now for the ride home, someone who had taken a sandwich, sat beside me and we began to chat.
Wilfred Robbins, he said his name was.
I was the lucky one now, because for two and ½ hours we chatted, me mostly asking questions.
He told me about the Elephant Hill Fires and showed me where they had happened, pointing out how the land had now been logged, the big trees taken out and the trash trees left behind.
These are trees that hadn’t been sold previously, but were now sold at low prices, since their value had dramatically fallen after the fire.
He showed me the pit houses and how to identify them, the shallow dips in the fields and the Secwepemc grass (so called because it is yellow and not like the grass that is customary in the land).
This is grass that has grown from the mats that the Secwepemc purchased from further down the coast.
As people have sat on the mats, seeds have dropped out and now grown.
“It doesn’t look like any other grass from around here,” he explained.
He was sure that grass, now growing from the bottom of old pit houses came from trading up and down the coast of the western Americas.
He told me about the thousands of years of occupation of the land, about how the Chilcotin are really Athabaskan people who fled up here from wars in New Mexico.
I got lessons about old burial customs and about how he had been party to finding a grave of a small child, buried sitting up, leaning again a pole that had been put in the grave.
This burial site was on Chilcotin land, but proved to him, that the land was really Secwepemc land, for this is the burial practise of the Secwepemc people and not of the Chilcotin.
I listened to his description of tribal politics and of provincial legislation.
Nobody was luckier than me on that trip.
Arta
 |
| LtoR: Bonnie and Rebecca at Kwellkemt (Farewell Canyon) |
I arrived at Esketemc, at the Arbour in the camping area, just as the shuttle was preparing to depart to Farewell Canyon.
I signed the waiver form on the bus. As I climbed the stairs of the shuttle I asked if there were room for me.
“Room for the first 55 if they have signed a waiver,” said the person sitting in the driver’s seat. “So far there are 28 on board.”
I took a seat on the left hand side of the bus, a couple of seats behind the bus driver and knew that I would be treating this as though I were on an excursion from an expensive cruise ship, pressing my nose to the window to my left, but mostly looking out the front of the bus at the scenery.
I was surprised that we took the road back to Williams Lake and then turned toward the hills, climbing them and going along curved roads, switchbacks, gaining altitude. I studied the cattle on the hillside. I noticed when the fields were fenced and when the animals seemed to roam as they wished, only stopped by the cattle guards on the roads. I watched sign put up by the BC Forestry saying Mile 1, Mile, 2 … Mile 13, etc.
The first rain for many days was falling. The windshield wipers on the bus were on a low speed, first the pane to the left, then the pane to the right being cleaned off. I was overwhelmed when we got to the top of the hill.
Actually I gasped and because I was alone, but it was too much gorgeousness for a person who was alone, I leaned forward to the person who was in the seat ahead of me and said, Wow.” All of this fabulous beataciousness is just too much for me to experience alone.”
He nodded.
 |
| Far left middle: dipnet fisherman standing on rocks. His stick is white and the net is being dipped in the water. |
The bus began the descent into the canyon on a road with z-like switch backs.
Finally getting to the bottom I could see a bridge and 2 Chilchotin Chiefs standing on it, one of them with his legs far apart in a stance as though we could not cross the bridge.
I think his arms were also crossed.
“Are they going to keep us from crossing the bridge,” asked the bus driver as he turned to us, throwing his question to the back of the bus. No one answered. He popped out of the bus telling us all to stay put before he left. I think he was gone long enough that some men stood up and began to leave the bus to go see for themselves what was going on ahead and to check if he needed help.
The driver returned and said it was OK for the rest of us to leave the bus and I walked down to the bridge to see what the drumming and singing were about which had now started. Chilcotin chiefs were on our side of the bridge. Secwepemculew chiefs were on our side of the bridge.
“Don’t worry, there is just welcoming going on,” said someone. People were watching the chiefs talking to each other. Travellers were milling around, some moving along the sidewalk so that there were people were standing on the bridge.
Rebecca took me over and introduced me to one of the Chilcotin chiefs who is married to one of her former students. Always worried about protocol, she had asked the Chilcotin chief. who seemed to be in charge, if it were alright to do this.
“Yes, since you have asked,” he said to her. “Go ahead.” With him we talked for a while about the recent article his wife had written on picking morrels in the forest.
Then someone said to me, “Dipnetting is going on. Go onto the bridge yourself and take a look. It is safe.”
People were climbing the steep trail at the side of the canyon and coming out at the top of the bridge. I was wondering where that trail came from for it seemed to descend to the river. As well, I now had some idea why everyone had to sign a waiver before getting on the bus for this first impulse of mine was to take the trail leading down to the churning water. My second and more sane plan was just to walk onto the bridge and watch the dipnet fishing over the rails as many people were doing.
The first thing I noticed was a bag that was being drawn up from the water was only half way up when it went broke, pummelling itself on the rocks below, three fish splatting from it and bouncing onto the rocks. I wondered how large those fish really were, given it is hard to tell length of a fish from the height I was at.
Immediately I thought of sucker fish and the broken bones he suffered when he fell from the sky in “The Story of the Sky People”. “Three salmon, now sucker fish,” I murmured to myself.
 |
| Left Bottom Corner: Man is bagging fish to be pulled up to the top of the bridge. |
They pointed out the man on the edge of the rocks, a rope tide over the main part of his body, a long net in his hand.
He was making long scoops through the water, and when catching a fish he would pull the net up and toss the fish out of it and behind a small rock fence that was on the side of the cliff.
Another man would scramble down to that place, pick up three fish or so and take them up the side of the canyon to a place where he could bag them in large burlap bags which he then tied and someone else then winched up to the top of the bridge.
We watched how many time the dipnet fisher had to swirl his net through the water to catch a fish. Bonnie had a contest with someone who stood near her, both of them giving the number of dips they thought it would take: 20 / 25 / 30 / 40, the numbers kept rising until a fish came into the net at dipnet number 47.
 |
| Fisherman is putting dipnet in water. Bonnie counted once. It took 47 dips to finally catch a fish. |
1) I have listened long enough to hear both side of the conversation and I don’t need to hear anymore;
2) I thought the negotiations were going well until someone on our side said smothing that the other side said thought was inflammatory and things went off the rails;
3) don’t worry, we can still have the salmon ceremony on the far side of the bridge and you can either walk up there, or go get on the bus and it will take you up there.
 |
| Frazer Canyon What I couldn't catch is the sound of the swirling water below. The air was filled with smoke from the forest fires. |
And so we did, waiting for the bus to follow.
A certain amount of energy coursed through our veins when we saw the bus start up, but go in the direction of driving home.
We were far, too far away to run and catch up with it.
A car arrived to say that there would be no ceremony, and that we should walk back to the bus.
I can’t remember who came to tell us that a woman in a white car was offering sandwiches to all, saying, “We want to feed your elders and what is going on between the chiefs is just political. But we have sandwiches here for you.”
These were sandwiches that not all felt comfortable taking, me being one of those.
 |
| Fish caught and ready to be bagged. |
Wilfred Robbins, he said his name was.
I was the lucky one now, because for two and ½ hours we chatted, me mostly asking questions.
He told me about the Elephant Hill Fires and showed me where they had happened, pointing out how the land had now been logged, the big trees taken out and the trash trees left behind.
These are trees that hadn’t been sold previously, but were now sold at low prices, since their value had dramatically fallen after the fire.
 |
| Space where the Salmon Ceremony did not take place. |
This is grass that has grown from the mats that the Secwepemc purchased from further down the coast.
As people have sat on the mats, seeds have dropped out and now grown.
“It doesn’t look like any other grass from around here,” he explained.
He was sure that grass, now growing from the bottom of old pit houses came from trading up and down the coast of the western Americas.
 |
| The ground was dry. This plant was everywhere. |
I got lessons about old burial customs and about how he had been party to finding a grave of a small child, buried sitting up, leaning again a pole that had been put in the grave.
This burial site was on Chilcotin land, but proved to him, that the land was really Secwepemc land, for this is the burial practise of the Secwepemc people and not of the Chilcotin.
I listened to his description of tribal politics and of provincial legislation.
Nobody was luckier than me on that trip.
Arta
I can't believe we had the opportunity to be there for that moment. wow.
ReplyDeleteThe meeting at the bridge was like being in a movie, wasn't it? So civilized. We could cross the bridge. But our bus couldn't. And our side, just saying OK, we think we have followed all of the necessary protocol, but it looks like all is not well on your side, even with that.
ReplyDeleteAh, sweet Summer Gathering at Farewell Canyon. I can still hear the rush of the water. And see those fish falling when they were being drawn up. And I can feel that impulse to run down to the water, even though I am hundred of miles away now.