We said good-bye to Echo Bay and started heading up Tribune Channel in the late morning. The sun was shining again, which helped to warm and dry our bones.
Our first stop was at the Burdwood Group of islands. A beautiful mini-archipelago within the bigger Broughton Archipelago, it was inhabited by the Kwakiutl people for about 8,000 years. The area has a very special feel to it – broken shell beaches, evidence of villages, breath-taking natural surroundings. A wonderland teeming with energy, for sure. This group of 17 islands, islets and grassy rocks housed at least 6 village sites, and one island was used for defensive purposes only. Strategically situated and difficult to climb onto (we found out), villagers would bring food and supplies to the warriors who stayed on this small islet on-watch for attacks from other tribes.
Preserved in the trees and marked by a subtle trail, an ancient cedar which was culturally modified hundreds of years ago still stands. Natives would remove long boards from trees, without causing the tree to fall or even die. This particular tree was special, in that boards had been removed from 2 sides.
Aboriginal people lived all along this coast for thousands of years. That is, until the smallpox epidemic, brought by European fur traders, essentially wiped out the native population in all of British Columbia about 150 years ago. This is a very sad chapter of BC history. People who had been living here since before recorded history, in harmony and balance with nature, could not defend themselves against this virulent disease which they had never been exposed to before. One year (ONE year, from 1862-1863) is all it took for this well established population to be drastically reduced, almost to extinction. And with their decline we lost the profound wisdom that can only come from thousands of years of experience. Perhaps we don’t always realize how fragile we all are – our way of life could change forever in the blink of an eye. Natural disaster, man-made disaster, climate change, pollution, nuclear accident, economic Armageddon, famine, disease – all of these things could bring about the end of the world as we know it, and very quickly. It has happened before, in the not too distant past, it can (and, probably will) happen again. Life is precious, but humans are fragile.
Sorry to leave this magical place after only a few hours, we continued on our way up Tribune Channel. There we found the Lacy Waterfalls running down the wall of the rocky mountainside. We dropped our prawn trap just outside of Kwatsi Bay, which houses a very small marina frequented by the cruisers. Again we opted to anchor instead of pay for moorage, and had to get very close to the shore to find a spot shallow enough for us to have the hook catch. With running streams on the shore, we knew bears were close by, so we made sure to close and lock all the hatches before we went to sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment