K'uuna Linagaay (Skedans)

 Dee-D teaching us about her culture

Yesterday we met some quite incredible humans. They have been spending immense spiritual and physical energy to help people from all over the world to understand the traditions which animated the Haida culture. Dee-Dee met our little dinghy on the waterfront when we towed our dinghy ashore. She was just finishing guiding a large expedition tour group along the carefully laid out pathway through the historic village of K'uuna or Skedans (that's the European name). Dee-D is one of the watchmen of the islands who teach us what it means to be of Haida origin. So far this year nearly 4,000 people will have visited this site as the tourists depart and the season draws to a close.

Dee-D invited us to wait at the firepit near the beach, but we were sidetracked by re-meeting Jennifer and Julia on their way to the Watchmen's hut. Nancy and I had met them in the laundromat in QCV on Saturday. They filled us in on the adventures they had been having with their group. So we tagged along into the hut where watchman Eric and Dee-D finished with the group by gifting them with freshly baked cinnamon buns. We talked about whales, the Haida art that has vanished into Japanese collections and to Museums all over the world, and watched Eric weaving a tiny basket using red cedar bark strips.

Mortuary pole

Then we followed Dee-D into the forest. We looked at the remains of long houses, we heard about the 'mother cedar' house supports which formerly upheld the large individual houses and the community longhouse (home of the overall birth Chief), about the funerary mortuary poles and about the potlatches (celebrations) which formed the basis of this same chief's lasting gifts to the members of his clan. The two Clans of the Haida had either the Eagle or the Raven as their emblem, and the two Clans we locked into a collaborative effort because one's house could only be built by the alternate clan. Dee-D made clear to us the impressionistic cedar art-works which had adorned the village in times past. She told us about the rebellion of the Haida people when their trees and seabeds were ruthlessly logged or despoiled and how they managed to stop the progress of 'civilization' and create the Park in collaboration with Parks Canada.

Dee-D explained how her grandmother had taught her the Haida belief: that we ALL own the earth - not just one or two of us - we are all inheritors. And afterwards, she gifted us with beautiful red salal jam and some deer which she says was thanked for all those of us who are now partaking in the meat he provided.

And today we walked through the high green forest and the mossy remains of the beautiful village of Taanu. I was on the island all alone 24 years ago. Larry had stayed out on Traversay II because it was too rough to leave the boat anchored. I rowed ashore and visited the silent green groves and the graveyard. We didn't see the graveyard today but we have read that famed artist Bill Reid (sculptor of the Jade Canoe - a centerpiece of the Vancouver International Airport) is buried in Taanu.

After we left Dee-D in K'uuna ... we saw this raven which watched until Larry took his photo ... he flew away just as we were about to depart!

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At 2018-09-13 04:47 (utc) our position was 52°41.56'N 131°45.86'W