On the Way to K'ómoks

... a blanket that was a gift to all attendees ...

Now my job is to use the blanket and to 
carry on witnessing what I heard and saw that day.

This past week, I have had some days when I thought that the moments have been so rich and profound that I hardly know how to process them.

I think that is what is taking me so long to write about the following daytime up the east coast of Vancouver Island. I did go to Comox to witness the ceremony between the Human Rights Museum and Kwakwaka'wakw artist Carey Newman (Hayalthkin'geme) who was making a contract with them about the art installation called The Witness Blanket. Others might have read the news release which I published a few days ago just gathering information out of it. When I read it, I cried. That is because those few words captured all that was happening in the five hours we were there.

The adventure began with 5 women in a car, doing the 3 hour drive there and then the 3 hour drive back – destination?

Comox in the rain.

We sang for a while – sometimes interesting songs we liked to do with children. Tara provided a new song I  didn’t know. “We are going on a picnic.” I can’t even replicate her version on you tube though I tried and found many other melodies.

We figured out the song using Solfa Method of Sight Singing and we knew how to identify and when to sing augmented fourths in other tunes. We also discussed everything seeing Al Simons behind stage at a festival to the latest Shakespeare to be seen on NT Live.

We talked for a while about an assignment Jess Asch was to turn in. We mostly listened while Jess provided a summary of what she wanted to say. Her assignment was to be 300 words. We listened and we asked questions and we wondered how she would synthesize all of her ideas into a few paragraphs.

 We talked about the upcoming election, about our hopes and dreams that it will lead to a more just political system.

We stopped to fill up the van and to get snacks. In my experience, purse are usually already filled with snacks.  But not for these women.

This is the first time I have ever been in a car with adults where the snack stop was an important part of the journey.

... detail of the edge of the blanket ...
... a design that is found in the Human Right's Museum ...

As we entered the Malahaat Highway there was an overhead electric sign saying “Watch for water pooling on the road”. When our car hydroplaned, that is when someone said, “Oh, that breath-holding experience is what that electronic sign was about back there.”

There was pretty much silence around the sign on the highway that said, “Hitchhiking is illegal. Picking up hitch hikers is illegal.” “What is that about”, I asked Rebecca.

“It is easier for the government to put warning sign like this on the highway, than to provide accessible transportation for people between the cities in northern British Columbia,” she said.

We used our google maps to find our way to Kumugwe, the K'ómoks First Nation Bighouse, and to make a very sharp right to get into Wendy’s for coffee and more snacks. The right turn was so sharp that we entered their exit road instead of the entrance to the mall. Now that was a sharp right.

Five women in a car, 300 kilometers each way.

We couldn’t have had more fun.

Arta