Welcome To Our World

December 2004-January 2005

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 Peter Ronald

Peter (in front of the stern paddler) sampling First Nations ecotourism. © Frank Brown photo.

On the east side of Vancouver Island, a dozen or so islands form a protected area within the larger Strait of Georgia. From my vantage point in a traditional war canoe, paddling in rhythm to a First Nations song and hearing the area’s ancient legends, these islands resonate with an original beauty and vitality. The landscape leaps to life in the stories of this place.

My opportunity to sample traditional coastal culture was a day-long excursion, part of the practicum of the pilot Aboriginal Cultural Ecological Tourism Field School organized by the Vancouver-based Native Education Centre. I attended on behalf of WaveLength, joining a small group of guests to experience the kind of ecotourism offering that only a First Nation’s perspective can give.

We learned about the three-week, ecotourism training intensive, which was uniquely crafted for prospective native entrepreneurs. The program provides participants with a hands-on experience into all aspects of developing and running a small aboriginal tourism business.

With access to skilled instructors delivering a series of workshops and course work, students are equipped for managing their own tour companies. Beyond business and marketing essentials, the structure and content of the course were embedded with principles of aboriginal education, traditional ecological and cultural knowledge, family protocols and community partnership.

We took an hour to paddle from Chemainus to Kuper Island, with interpretation and explanation. The day culminated with a feast and presentation to the Penelakut community elders and band members.

We learned from the students en route that paddling is at the heart of the training. For millennia, the canoe was the primary mode of transport, trade and communications in these coastal waters. Yet a canoe is much more than this: it is a sacred being, alive with her crew’s pulse and breath, reflecting all of the good or ill will carried by each of her paddlers. A means of transport as well as metaphor, many lessons and insights are revealed by paddling a canoe, such as “the gift of each enriches all.”

The traditional canoe culture has been in revival since 1986 when Frank Brown, a young Heiltsuk entrepreneur, brought a team of canoes from BC’s Central Coast to Vancouver’s Expo ’86 and then organized the Paddle to Seattle in 1989. This helped spark a resurgence in ‘canoe societies’ and a renewed activity in carving, racing and celebrating the canoe. It was Frank’s beautiful canoe (above) that brought us from the Chemainus dock to Kuper Island’s western shore.

This is the territory of the six members of the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group: Penelakut, Chemainus, Halalt, Lyackson, Cowichan Tribes and Cowichan Lake First Nations. These nations currently control about 1% of their traditional lands and water, and an even smaller percentage of the area’s economic activity.

Clearly the hope is that this kind of aboriginal tourism will be prominent in the near future. Families with foresight and a willingness to work hard should prosper. As lead instructor Frank Brown stated so eloquently, “We want to be prosperous in our own land like our ancestors were.”

© Peter Ronald works with the Georgia Strait Alliance. www.gsa.org. Frank Brown is a GSA board member.

Native Education Centre: 604-873-3772, www.necvancouver.org