Trip to BC - 2010

We left from Arthur on May 21. Drove to Mattawa at the Gaudet’s overnight. Picked some red trillium roots. Some 3 and 4 stems. Really powerful medicine. Really hot and lots of black flies.

Drove to Hagar on the 22nd to visit Daniel and Suzanne. Quite the wind mill and solar panel set up.

Drove to Wawa the 23rd. Saw 1 deer, one fisher, one otter, one moose. Really hot so far.

Drove to Dryden on 24th . Wabigoon camping. Means white feather? Saw 5 moose. Amazing thunder storm(nimki).

Drove to Moosomin Saskatchewan. Extremely windy since we entered open land in Manitoba. Really hard on gas. Had to drive 80 kl or less. Mino Dodem draws atttention even outside Ontario

June 1st. Received gift from Patrick. Haida paddle made by Wayn Edenshaw. Great grand child of Charles Edenshaw one of the greatest Haida paddle maker. Yellow cedar.

June 4th. Paddled mino dodem in the pacific today. Parksville. That’s where George and I had a pipe ceremony 5 years ago. After paddling I rested the canoe on a big cedar stump by the forest edge and went back to offer assema to the ocean. Got back to the canoe and when I lifted it only took 2 steps and there was an eagle feather. I bent over with canoe on back and accepted it. At the camp site while the fire was getting ready to make coals to cook fish we had a pipe ceremony. This time I used George’s pipe again. He was there. Unusually it smoked with ease this time. I went back to the site where I had found the feather and another one frsesly dropped was in my footsteps. Meegwetch George and megesae.

Jun 6th. Padled in Quoyoclut sound today. Met canoe builder Carl Martin. The east meets the west. I was supposed to meet with Joe Martin, Carl’s brother, but their brother fell on a dock and drowned a few weeks ago. Then last week 4 people died in a plane crash. They where all friends of the Martin family. Gisele shares the same dock as the Atleo plane services.

June 7th we stopped at an art gallery and met wood carver Gordon Dick. He shared that his elders also have stories of his people travelling into the interior to trade with us. I gave him some bear fat because his wife has arthritis. He gave me a small red cedar box he made to keep my special stuff in. Check out his work by googling his name.

Also met another artist on the ferry back to the mainland. He was waiting by the truck for us. He fell in love with the canoe. Sol Maya is a traditional Mayan glass blower. He also has stories of how all people from south and north america got together. His elders tell him the people would meet somewhere around the california coast and make fires on the shoreliine. Image that. All nations meeting to share their knowledge.

He took us to his studio in North Vancouver. Turns out he is working out of Emily Carr’s old studio. Ouaaaaa.