Author Archives: JeanEB

Truth & Reconciliation

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Today, September 30th, is a new federal statutory holiday, called Truth and Reconciliation Day, to honour all the children and their families and communities who were, and are, affected by Canada’s racist and inhumane policies for over 120 years that the residential school system for Aboriginal children and youth was in operation.

I have seen so many signs of change over the past few years in awareness and profile of indigenous issues, greatly accelerated this year with the summer’s revelations of the discovery of mass graves on the properties of former residential schools. Indigenous affairs are far more visible on national media news sites than they ever were and CBC hosts a wonderful show of contemporary music from First Nations, Inuit and Metis musicians as well as many podcasts doing deep dives with conversations about indigenous history, culture and current affairs. People’s voices are raised and getting louder and more and more Canadian hearts and minds are opening and hearing. This is a good time to remind ourselves that we, all of us, have a lot to learn.

The Tyee has compiled a series of 10 articles by indigenous writers from past issues on a range of topics that are worth a look – Truth? Reconciliation? Find Meaning in These Indigenous Voices.

I heard an interview recently with a First Nations man who was asked what he suggested Canadians should be doing in support of this call for reconciliation. He replied by saying that a good start would be for people to actually read the report and recommendations of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada of its 6-year in-depth investigation of the residential school system and its impacts. This struck a chord with me. I’ve had the report for quite some time but never finished reading it. So, it was a good reminder to return to it now. I agree. The first step is the intention and action to face the truth head on.

There are 94 Calls to Action included in the report. Today is a result of one of them:

#80 We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, to establish, as a statutory holiday, a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to honour Survivors, their families, and communities, and ensure that public commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.

As well, truth and reconciliation is not just about opening one’s eyes to the abuses of the past. What about the racism and institutionalized subjugation of the present? A good start to learning the truth about the current realities is…

I had also heard somewhere that a visual sign of support on this day could be for people to hang an orange shirt, which has become a symbol of the children, in their front windows or yards. Now orange does not have a place in my closet so yesterday I went in search of one. In the next town I went to a few places and finally found an orange shirt, the only one left in this store. As I took it to the cashier she exclaimed, “Oh you found one!” I asked her if a lot of other people had been in looking for the same thing and she replied, “Yes, many people.” Ah.

Then there’s this kind of acknowledgment that I’m seeing more and more of. This one from The Old School House Arts Centre here in Qualicum Beach:

We’re humbled and grateful to acknowledge that we live & create on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples and that of the Qualicum First Nation.

Half Past Summer

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At the beginning of July, with falling Covid rates and increased vaccinations, the provincial government loosened restrictions in British Columbia. For months people had been prohibited from traveling between regions or coming in from outside the province. No one could travel by ferry across from the mainland for “non-essential travel”, and masks and distancing requirements were still in place. Things were pretty quiet around here.

All that changed and our little summer tourist town was transformed in an instant. Masks are no longer mandatory and social distancing has downgraded to what appears to be a suggestion.

We took advantage of the lifting of travel restrictions and Number One Son Steve and Rosie the Dog came for a visit last weekend. I hadn’t seen him in a year, although he lives just a 2 hour drive away in Victoria. I got to hug my son at long last and it was Bliss.

After such a long time of peace and quiet the immediate flood of people from the mainland and elsewhere descending on us was something of a shock. That first weekend I went to the Saturday Farmers Market to find it packed with visitors, just as it used to be in summers pre-pandemic. It was disorienting after such a long time of constriction and I found it completely unsettling. “Staying in your lane” was out the window and social distancing was crumbling. Some wore masks, some didn’t. Yesterday at the market, a month since the tourists descended, I notice that even more are now maskless, despite the crowds. I am not one of them. I look to my right and I look to my left and I wonder “Are you not wearing a mask because you are double vaxed or because you are never gonna be vaxed?” Twilight zone.

Worth More Standing

News on the island these past months has been about the protests against old growth logging, centred around Fairy Creek on southern Vancouver Island, where protesters have been blocking access to the area to stop the logging companies from going in to rip ’em out. They’ve been camped at the watershed for a year now and since the companies got a court injunction against the protesters 500 have been arrested. This hasn’t stopped them. The government has responded with some temporary halting of cutting and promises to come up with a plan for old growth (and other) forestry changes. Right.

To put this in perspective, on Vancouver Island all but about 1% of old growth forest has been destroyed and trying to save these ecosystems of what little is left is not insignificant. Timber companies continue to cut 10,000 hectares of old growth forest every year. The trees cannot save themselves, it is up to the humans who care to do that. I care. So what can I do? How do you stop the machine?

Old growth remnant, saved by chance. A tree called Big Lonely Doug – 70 metres tall, ~1000 years old, the size of a 20 storey building – note the human at the base of the trunk (magnifying glass may be required). Photo TJ Watt

I heard about a rally and mini-march to be held in our little town in support of our old growth forests and decided to go, more from a sense of helplessness and despair than anything else. I can’t go and get myself arrested at Fairy Creek but I can spend an hour or two to add my body and voice to the count. We were maybe 120 people. It was also the first time I’d been in any kind of group of people in a very long time, which was mildly uncomfortable. I kept my mask on. And lest I become discouraged over our small numbers I have to remind myself that this gathering of people who care, in this little town, was echoed in rallies in other towns and cities as well.

Heat Dome

I think many have heard about the record breaking heatwave we experienced in British Columbia at the end of June. Five days. Over 600 people dead. Shellfish cooked along the shores.

In our backyard the highest temperature reached was 38C. “Normal” temperatures for this time of year (although there’s no such thing anymore) are usually mid-20’s, with overnight temps in the teens. We have no central air, nor do most people around here. I spent 3 of those days more or less staying in one place in front of my own air conditioning system. $30 from Canadian Tire…

BC is on Fire – Again

The town of Lytton in the interior became a violent metaphor for climate change. During the heatwave it earned the painful record of being the hottest place ever recorded in Canada. For three consecutive days long standing national records were broken – the highest temperature clocked at 49.6C. On the fourth day the town literally exploded when forest fire took the entire place out in a matter of minutes.

Lytton after the fire

There are now 240 fires burning on the mainland. Friends of ours in Osoyoos in south Okanagan were forced to evacuate their home a week ago due to fires that reached within half a kilometer from their property. We visited them several years ago and I can appreciate the terrain and the danger they are in high up on Anarchist Mountain. (See Road Trip-A Change of Scenery.)

So far there have been no major fires here on the island. We have had no rain since June 15th. All month we’ve had nothing but clear blue skies and sunshine, then this past Saturday and Sunday it was overcast but not from rain clouds. The smoke generated from the interior fires has made its way to Vancouver and some of this headed across the Strait in our direction. So far, over here we can’t smell the smoke yet, but the skies were hazier and we keep an eye on wind direction as well as everything else in the weather forecast.

My new motto is ‘we’ll see what happens next’.

So it is now a month since the province’s public health re-opening. I continue to take baby steps into the world. A visit in the back garden, coffee with a new friend on a restaurant terrace, taking in the new art exhibitions at our local arts centre – the latter particularly happy-making as the place was closed for over a year and I am SO over looking at art only on a computer screen.

However, a month after relaxing public health orders, we now see new Covid cases in the province again on the rise, and have tripled in the last 10 days, no surprise there. This sign in a local independent grocery store says it plain and simply…

We’ll see what happens next.

Revelations & Symbols

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The flags everywhere are flying at half mast, after the recent announcement that the remains of more than 200 children have been found buried on the grounds of the former Indian Residential School in Kamloops, B.C. They are a symbol of acknowledgement and respect for these young lives, lost to history and to their families, as they were buried in secrecy, undocumented, in unmarked graves far from their homes, often without their own people knowing about it. They were taken away and they never returned.

The news was shocking, but not surprising; a long needed jolt of awakening for the settler people at least. The people of the aboriginal nations have known about this all along, which does not diminish the trauma that these revelations no doubt have reawakened. In a way this seems to have been more effective at reaching the public’s attention than all the years of meetings and reports and recommendations and Calls to Action of all the Commissions and all the recent talk of Truth and Reconciliation, that not to disrespect all of those efforts, sometimes feels like…just so much talk. Well here’s Truth, all right. In an unholy partnership between Government and Church to implement an official policy to “kill the Indian in the child”, (what has come to be known as “cultural genocide”), 150,000 aboriginal children were taken from their families and communities to live in the 139 residential schools across this country, a practice that continued for over 100 years. No one seems to know (or tell) how many children died in the schools. Until now, when the earth is starting to reveal its secrets.

This is a time of Revelations. The secrecy and lies and hidden history are split wide open. More to come.

I spotted these heartbreaking symbols, the visual reaction of people near us to this news, who collected and brought them to rest along a long fence beside the main road to Parksville. Hundreds of little red shoes – a sight that takes your breath away.