Home on the beach

'I find that people who come to visit just want to go down to the beach,' said Dolores.

And down to the beach I go. It is sandy, and I take my time. I understand why the two clans are the ravens and the eagles - this is their playground. Severn, D Suzuki's daughter, has a Haida husband and two kids, with whom she has been heard by Dolores to speak Haida at the Co-op. They have a new house just a few houses away from Dolores' under construction. The bulldozer, doing rough grading, and the rock music that accompanies cut into the early morning air, otherwise full of eagle and raven sounds.

B, who I met from the festival at a table, has now moved into the other room here at Dolores' house. He has added another dimension to this week, and while Dolores and I cannot entirely sort out what to do with him, he seems ok, has done no harm, and seems to need a place to stay. He has been here in Haida Gwaii since June living chez a variety of people in return for help around the house, and here he is sifting Dolores' four garden boxes to rid them of stones.

B and I were at the library yesterday when he started chatting with A, who he met at a potluck. A invited us for tea this morning. He lives by the water in a house he built 8-ish years ago, one that I would consider beyond impossible, being free of a humming fridge and bathroom. He is also under the constant pressure of eviction. The light in the winter, he says, with the high water and low rays, bathes the deepest recesses of his one-room house with the dancing light of reflected waves. His first house of some 10 years, near the same site, was swept away by storm, and all but very little was saved. He tells me, as I roam through his space, he likes how I connect the dots of the things I see. We spend 3 hours chatting over tea from mint he gathered in the forest, as if we were the best of kindred spirits catching up from a long absence.

In the evening, Dolores, B, and I watch a remarkable and truly moving documentary about the repatriation in 2003 of about 150-160 Haida human remains from the Chicago Field Museum to Haida Gwaii. It is called Stolen Spirits. As we watched, Dolores kept saying that such-and-such in the film was her brother, her cousin, her niece, etc. To convey the depth of community effort and emotion in this process was a task that I am glad was well done. Everyone seemed to do the right thing. They learned how to make traditional bentwood boxes and how to design and paint Haida art on them. Elementary school kids sewed buttons onto the blankets that the remains would be nestled in. There were calls made to Air Canada, a full delegation sent to Field Museum, much dancing and chanting throughout, including at the O'Hare gate as they saw the remains enter the plane. And the anthropologists who hosted them at Field came and were welcomed to Haida Gwaii, and held a box, as part of the re-burial procession to the cemetary. A full circle complete.

Haida-ing

'Haida dogs?' I ask Dolores, 'What's that all about?' 'I don't know, but they're probably big.'

Dolores has beautiful eyes, clear and bright. But they are problematic for her. Yesterday, the first thing she said was that she discovered a new black dot in her eye. She tells me she doesn't have bifocals on the left side of her glasses, because she can't see anything out if it. Every two months, she comes to the eye doctor in Vancouver for. It was on one of these trips that I met her on the Skytrain.

If it weren't for Dolores, I would be entirely blind here. She tells me about the bump in the road, and how pavement would crack after an earthquake. That the sign for Jungle Beach is actually just a bit away from the 'real' Jungle Beach. That before, there was no road to Massett from Skidegate, they took the boat from Port Clements, and that Skidegate is where the government rounded them up and put them all. That when she was young, she ate clams off a stick for snacking, and that there would be seaweed in her pocket for munching on too. That her father was a great fisherman from Tanu (taa-NOO) and her mother from Skedans.

She tells me how to make bubbly sounds from deep in my throat, as if to bring up a little fish from the depths of the sea. I practice the word for Skidegate. It starts with a TH from the throat, then a G, still down there, followed by an easy 'gildna', followed by the second word starting with a double LL from below, popping up to the surface with an -ungway. Cheena means fish, and we pass by a river whose name translates as fish water. Skit-q'un - salal berries - are not quite ripe yet here. Haida means 'people', and the word for those up in Masset are 'faraway Haida.' I recognize the 'thl' sound which is similar to a sound from my dad's village dialect.

On Saturday we will go to the Kay Heritage Centre, for the 30th anniversary of its opening. Kay (qaaey) - almost better spelt as arabic قاي - means sea lion. Kay scuna means 'you smell like a sea lion' because boy, they are first smelled before seen. She will be the Acting Matriarch there at the festivities, as her sister, the Matriach, is ill. We go by the Centre to look at the totem poles, and she tells me which ones which relative made. They have the two clans, the Ravens and the Eagles, which is passed down matrilinially, and inevitably there is a raven or an eagle on a pole. She describes how the raven has a long straight beak, and the eagle has a curved beak. The rings at the top signify the number of potlatches the family has had. The hole at the bottom is the pole, and I've always liked low doors - they sometimes signify submission upon entrance. The word for door is the same for clam, as they both hinge shut. Of the two clans, she is a Raven, known for its intelligence. Specifically she is a 'Raven and the Moon.' She shows me the blanket with these symbols, which she will wear on Saturday.

We drive back from Kagan Bay (q'ah-gun < a safe place). I go extra slow by the playground and the town centre - cop cars do ticket for speeding, and they might be haida-ing behind a bush. We banter a bit, and by the end of the long day I get pretty silly. She tells me that they'll have Haida games on Saturday. 'Like what?' I ask, 'Ring around the totem pole?'

Tlell

'Good bye everyone,' says ruddy-faced Peter with the black hatbox, 'Welcome to Paradise!' He got the driver to honk at people walking along the road, and us to wave at them. He threatened a duel with the bus driver, who proposed to the 88-year old woman behind me, who I am sure blushed. We were all ready to leave the ferry landing, when I noticed a minivan intently aimed head-on at our bus. We started and turned to avoid a collision, against those who Peter suddenly noticed were friends who had decided to come to pick him up.

I meet Paul on the ferry (more like barge) from Alliford to Skidegate, who thought he'd chat with me as his son-in-law chatted with 'my man' (who?). From the best sounding name of a town in New Brunswick,  and currently on the sliding slope of Fort Mac, they are here for three days, renting the other half of a duplex of the owner who will guide them to the seas.

The grapevine grows quick and runs deep here. We learn via Peter that the flight attendent's name is Julie (and _everyone_ liked her, having experienced the other sort countless times) and that she lived on the Island for a year when she was in Grade 1. She was the only attendent on the Dash 8-300. She, in good Air Canada form, duly spoke everything in English and French, the French portion having as foreign a taste to the situation as an Air France equivalent in English on an international flight. The woman I sat next to, an 18 year old veteran of the Island, helped her stock the cart with pop ('2 sprites, 2 tomato juices...') and then later navigated the novice bus driver around to the various drop off locations here. Having arrived at a street sign labelled 3rd Avenue, I thought it was my stop. But no, she says 3rd is long and different ways to get on it. Take signs with a grain of salt - they may only indicate themselves.

It comes as a surprise to people on the bus that the place I am going to rents cars at all, and for the price I am paying. The overhead is perhaps low - I sit at a kitchen table to fill out the form - and the car might not have a single computer chip in it. The bare minimum exists for safe driving on a stick. The key opens the door and starts the ignition.

I drive directly out to Tlell, to the music festival where my friend D awaits at the door. The road is very smooth and hugs the ocean coast. I pass the Kay Centre, the Haida Heritage Centre - where the meeting of the Ravens and Eagles will be next week. Gwaii Haanas - Beautiful Land.

Nanai, grandmother in Haida, is what others call D. The woman on the bus tells me she is well-respected. She says it like it is, i.e. at the crepe she bought, 'Is this all I get for what I paid?' We sit at a table and meet B, who has been volunteering here in Haida Gwaii in art camp. We suffer through some acoustics, and I stay just to see who Sam Roberts is. We decide all three to go up to Masset on Monday, his next port of call.