Saa-sit-qua-iis, the Canoe

February-March 2003

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

by Douglas Wright

Each artful chip is taken out of the log in a near perfect line. Jacqueline Windh photo

Coming from a history of sea-kayak guiding - where you have to work hard to keep a group of single and double kayaks together - I've come to appreciate the advantages of group paddling in large,ocean-going native canoes.

Because everyone is always together in the canoe, no one misses out on any of the information shared by the guide. If the weather gets a little rough, the efforts of all the paddlers in the canoe are shared - no one has to stop and wait in the chop and current for another to catch up. And the distances that can be covered in a set amount of time are greater than one would expect .

I realized these things as I got used to paddling with Gisele Martin aboard her 34 foot dugout canoe Sa-sit-qua-iis, or Hummingbird, in Clayoquot Sound. Gisele and her sister Marie-France were given the canoe by their father. Gisele and I are using it in Tlaook Cultural Adventures, in Tofino, BC .

Cultures all over the world carve wooden canoes. Of these, the Nuu-chah-nulth canoe is considered one of the finest and most seaworthy. The often challenging waters of the west coast of Vancouver Island have required a canoe design capable of handling waves with grace. The high wolf-head prow and raised stern block create a unique silhouette that is becoming familiar again in BC waters.

At approximately 800 pounds, this hand carved cedar canoe, full of average paddlers, can easily outpace a 46 pound kevlar kayak. When a well-built dugout canoe gets up to speed, it's a magnificent thing to watch .

While I was out paddling with Gisele on one of our guided four-hour trips in Sa-sitqua-iis, she told about the time she and her father, Joe, were sailing their canoe down the coast in a strong southeasterly wind.Her uncle Carl was heading to the same destination in a 70HP speedboat and he was struggling to keep up. The sleek profile of the canoe allowed it to run with the wind under sail, slicing through the waves that were causing trouble for the powerboat.

Every year the First Nations of British Columbia and the Northwest States travel great distances on Tribal Canoe Journeys. Their destinations change annually. The most recent meeting that Gisele attended was in Vancouver, hosted by the Squamish First Nation. After crossing Georgia Strait in rain and fog, they finally joined the gathering in Ambleside Park, where the hosts and thousands of interested spectators welcomed dozens and dozens of seagoing canoes. The dugout canoes, once the center of First Nations culture, are now at the center of their cultural revival .

Sa-sit-qua-iis is named after a very similar canoe that was owned by one of Gisele's great grandfathers. During its day it was the leader of her family's whaling fleet. Many different sizes of canoes were used in those days. Small canoes were used by one or two people to go to food gathering areas,such as berry patches or camas bulb gardens .Larger ones were used to go whale hunting thirty miles offshore, or to carry war parties. The largest canoes were used to move entire households from summer village sites to winter village sites and back again.

There are no plans to do any whaling with Sa-sit-qua-iis, although it feels to me that the canoe is worthy of its hereditary name,with its speed and maneuverability. For a boat of its size, it seems remarkably easy to move through the water. I can imagine it full of men who have trained and fasted for weeks to bring their focus onto the task of hunting enormous marine mammals. When Gisele strokes with her big steering paddle I can feel the boat jump forward, and I wonder if she has some secret technique learned from her elders.

The interior of the canoe has been shaped by hand with an adze, each artful chip taken out of the log in a near perfect line to create a unique skin, painted ochre-red. The outside of the boat is smooth and painted black. Gisele tells me that, traditionally, the canoe would have been scorched black by fire to tighten the outer grain of the wood against insects and the sun.

As we paddle close to the shore, I am surprised that the bottom of the boat isn't touching the sand beneath us, only a few inches below the surface of the calm waters of Lemmens Inlet. The flat bottom allows us to skim over waters as shallow as I could drift over in my kayak.

As the yew-wood paddle flexes in my hand, I feel fortunate to be involved in the revival of the great canoes.

© Doug Wright and Gisele Martin run Tla-ook Cultural Adventures.